The role of socially rich photos in generating favorable donation behavior on charity websites

While online retail sites succeed in reinforcing perceptions of human warmth on their websites thanks to more and more interactive technologies, the charitable sector cannot, for lack of human, technical and financial resources, make use of such technologies. This research paper demonstrates the potential of a simple tool: the socially rich photo. Although the literature has extensively documented how photos impact visitor behavior in online environments, research in the context of donations through charity websites is rare and has provided contradictory results. By focusing more closely on the role of the individual represented in such photos (the recipient of a donation versus the donor), our studies, conducted in France, offer additional insights on the subject as well as managerial advice for organizations.     

Attracting potential blood donors: The role of personality and social marketing

Globally, society has been facing several and growing health problems, which increased the importance of efforts towards social change. In this context, using social marketing to create and implement programs that foster behavioural change has increased in the public health community. One of the health problems that society has been facing is the unceasing need for blood products, so the subject of blood donation became an important research topic in the area of social marketing, as social marketing strategies can contribute to solving this problem. It is essential to understand the factors that motivate individuals to donate blood, to enhance the recruitment and retention of blood donors. Our study aims at evaluating the key personality factors that influence blood donation behaviour to reach a higher understanding of what concerns this global issue. The method used to analyse the data is ANOVA. We conclude that the Personality of potential donors is significantly different from the non-donors' regarding Openness to Experience and Agreeableness. These results suggest that potential donors might perceive blood donation, as well as the associated barriers, differently from non-donors. Based on our findings, we suggest some perspectives for future research in this area.     

Fundraising under two-dimensional asymmetric information: the case of mindless donations

The paper develops a model of charity’s choice of fundraising method under two dimensions of asymmetric information, quality and purpose. The main implication from this model is a separating equilibrium where the higher-quality charity uses a traditional fundraising method, while the lower-quality one exploits a low-stakes, take-it- or leave-it, ‘mindless’ method. Empirical results support the hypothesis that charities of lower quality are more likely to adopt the mindless fundraising method. Even so, consumers still choose to give in the equilibrium, due to the small requested amount of mindless donations, which disincentivizes serious thinking by consumers. The mindless method, along with purpose uncertainty, has the potential to alleviate the free-riding problem that is characteristic of public good provision and is, therefore, welfare improving.     

Maximizing benefits in project selection: a hybrid approach

Charitable foundations and government programmes should endeavour to allocate their limited resources to best serve their constituents. Yet, mathematical programming techniques are rarely used despite overwhelming evidence of their superiority in selecting projects that yield higher levels of total benefits. We present a novel ‘hybrid selection model’ that combines binary linear programming and heuristic rank-based models applied to two case studies. The first case focuses on providing services to women and shows a hybrid model would have selected the top three ‘signature’ projects and maintained an above-average overall project benefit while securing a 180% improvement in the number of projects funded, a 66% improvement in the number of women served and a 132% improvement in the total benefit achieved. In the second case, we apply the hybrid approach to data from the US government’s largest forest preservation programme and demonstrate that the hybrid approach could allow the programme to select up to 11 top-scoring projects while still achieving a 97% gain in the total overall benefit compared to their traditional method. These case studies show that the hybrid approach has the potential to be applied in a variety of settings and improve how foundations and programmes achieve their goals.     

Designing a medicalized wellness service: balancing hospitality and hospital features

Medicalized environments around the world are challenged with making trade-offs between the clinical nature of the service and the customer service elements needed to deliver the service. Many medicalized wellness services have yet to achieve an effective balance between their hospitality and hospital features to generate loyalty (repeat patronage). We present a case study of a blood service organization in a developed country that, at the time of data collection (2011), was working to resolve tension between clinical goals and expectations of Millennial donors. The results identified seven principles: ‘control over booking and service interactions’; ‘build social connections’; ‘offer a luxury, indulgent experience’; ‘build relationship with customer beyond the “medical” procedure’. The three remaining principles related to hospital-like features: ‘hide the functional/medical features of the service experience’; ‘demystify the “hidden” processes’; ‘ability for the physical service environment to be modified by the customer’.     

论我国高等教育捐赠税收政策

我国高等教育事业在快速发展的同时,出现了规模的扩张和教育投入不足的突出矛盾,社会捐赠作为弥补高校经费不足的重要途径,其作用的发挥却受到种种不利因素的制约,在现行税制方面存在诸多问题。完善我国高等教育捐赠税收制度,需要健全机构,规范管理,有效运作;全面启动捐赠配套资金工程;鼓励直接向高校捐赠;进行流转税、所得税改革;开征遗产及赠与税。     

非营利组织信息披露与社会捐赠:一个博弈分析

对非营利组织来说,提高自身持续发展能力为社会提供公益服务是其目标之所在。实现这一目标,非营利组织必须建立一个固定的社会捐赠群体来获取稳定的资金来源。通过一个完全信息动态博弈模型的分析可知,非营利组织在管理和运作中只有充分披露所接收的社会捐赠款的使用效率和效果,才能满足捐赠人的信息需求并使其享受到捐赠行为所带来的效用,进而采取进一步捐赠行动,非营利组织也由此提高其社会公信力,并能持续地获得资金来源。     

禁止强制捐赠、信息披露与管理费使用——基于海峡两岸捐赠制度之比较

由于相关制度的缺陷,导致我国大陆地区在禁止强制捐赠、信息披露、管理费使用方面都存在问题,所带来的负面效应日益突显,严重影响了慈善事业的发展。借鉴台湾地区经验,应推动慈善立法,强化监管责任;采取有效措施,避免强制捐赠;建立信息披露的约束机制;规范管理费使用。     

谁会更慈善？基于竞争战略与企业慈善行为的研究

以企业竞争战略选择作为出发点,对不同企业的捐赠行为和动机进行了研究。研究发现,与保守型竞争战略定位的企业不同,进取型竞争战略定位的企业更倾向于慈善捐赠行为,幅度更明显。其中,企业违规次数具有正向调节效应、管理者的政治关联具有负向调节效应,由此可以部分说明进取型企业的慈善捐赠行为有一定“伪善性”,或者是在谋求有利于企业的政治关联性。     

A novel approach to legacy donations with long-term benefits supported by numerical illustrations

Philanthropic donors face challenges in matching the causes to which they donate, the time horizon—and thus impact—of their donations, and the charitable vehicles they choose for making contributions. Wealthier donors may elect to create their own foundations and customize their charitable support. Less wealthy donors have limited choices: they may contribute to a nonprofit's current operations or to existing nonprofit endowments. We present a novel approach for making charitable donations, blending aspects of each of these strategies. Our approach has potential long-term financial benefits, allows donors to control their charitable donations in a convenient and easy-to-implement manner, can be established through an existing nonprofit organization, expands opportunities for more donors because it requires a smaller corpus contribution with lower management costs than creating a foundation, provides tax savings in the United States and other countries (e.g., the UK, Canada, and Australia) comparable to other planned giving vehicles, and may be implemented during one's lifetime using donor advised funds or as part of a legacy plan through the donor's estate documents, which is when the long-term benefits accrue.