Charitable Donations as Social Exchange or Agapic Action on the Internet: The Case of Hungersite.com

SUMMARY

Donations to charity have long been of interest to marketing academics seeking to understand the relationships between nonprofit organizations and their customers. A key area of concern is that of motivation-why do individuals donate time, money and other resources to charities in general or to particular charities? While marketers in particular, and social scientists in general, have explained donation and gift giving in terms of the exchange paradigm, more recently consumer researchers have introduced the notion of agapic (or unselfish) behavior to explain some aspects of gift giving. Using the case of a successful charitable Internet site, Hungersite.com, this paper attempts to contrast the exchange and agapic paradigms of donation behavior, with the re sulting strategic implications this may have for charity marketing strategy.