What kind of donor are you? Uncovering complexity in donor identity

Identity is a useful lens to understand donation behavior. However, studies have typically conceptualized and examined donor identity as a generic, unidimensional concept. Through in‐depth interviews with 52 blood donors, this study sets out to discover if there is more complexity to donor identity, and what implications this might have for marketing communications, in the context of donation of the self (e.g., blood, organs, time, and effort). We use sentiment polarity and amplification analysis of inductive themes to uncover distinct patterns reflective of four different donor identities. We label these the Savior, Communitarian, Pragmatist, and Elitist, which are underpinned by theories of gift‐giving, sharing, pragmatism, and signaling, respectively. The typology offers a theory‐building mechanism to anticipate the effects of marketing stimuli on donation behavior. We conclude by presenting four theoretical propositions, for which we provide preliminary empirical evidence. The survey data is suggestive of action readiness for donation behavior when a marketing communication message is aligned with its intended donor identity.     

Toward an Understanding of Donor Loyalty: Demographics,Personality, Persuasion,and Revenue

Donor loyalty is linked to revenue generation in nonprofit organizations. This study utilized a consumer-based marketing approach to donors and their contributions via examining loyalty to nonprofit organizations. Through a detailed literature review that identified five specific hypotheses, tested using a secondary analysis of a large survey, and the design and implementation of a second (online) survey, this article empirically assesses donor loyalty and provides findings that develop the literature, support practice, and identify areas of future research. The results demonstrate the linkages between donor loyalty and revenue, and provide a deeper understanding of the relationship of demographic factors, preference for consistency, materialism, and maximization to donor loyalty. Notably, the results clearly illustrate that habitual switchers donate substantially less than loyal donors. A series of areas for future research are identified and a number of recommendations are provided to practitioners vis-à-vis understanding their donors and enhancing their revenues through donations.     

EDITORIAL

ABSTRACT

Current research categorically studies two conceptually different but practically related concepts of product involvement level and demographic factors in the context of the relatively underresearched consumer base of Pakistan. It was established that the buying behavior of consumers is influenced by their gender, income level, and culture of respective cities where they reside and strongly moderated by the degree of involvement in a particular product category. Market segmentation on the basis of demographic factors and involvement level can lead to more precision in designing effective marketing strategies. In the current study, the authors also point out the sample biases that most previous studies in Pakistan exhibited. The focus of previous consumer behavior studies conducted in Pakistan was mostly metropolitan areas. The current study successfully gives evidence that to understand the intricacies of consumer behavior in a diversified society, the study sample should not be limited to metropolitan areas but should be extended to smaller cities and rural areas as well, because people in less commercially viable cities display different buying patterns. These findings are especially relevant for developing countries where there is great inequality in regional development.     

Leveraging Intercollegiate Athletics to Support Academic Giving at NCAA Division I Institutions

On average, National Collegiate Athletic Association Football Bowl Division (top-level of U.S. Intercollegiate athletics) schools raise 15% of their athletic budget from private fundraising. Key questions remain as to how increased emphasis on athletic fundraising influences academic giving. Some authors claim symbiotic effects while others assert that athletic gifts “crowd out” academic giving. The current study analyzes the largest single-institution set of individual donor data available to date. First time donors were more than twice as likely to give to athletics as academics. Fifty-one percent of donors making gifts to both athletics and academics (SPLIT donors) made their initial gift to athletics. Problematically, the conversion rate of athletic-only to split donors has fallen to less than 1%. On three different retention measures split donors have higher retention rates than athletic-only donors, who have higher retention rates than academic-only donors. Among split donors, 41.67% give their largest gift to support an academic program. Rather than competing, development officers would be better advised to systematically cultivating donors to support both athletics and academics.     

Service quality and blood donors — a marketing perspective

The National Blood Service, celebrating their fast half century, have responded to the increasing need for blood with the launch of their biggest recruitment drive ever, targeted at young adults with the goal of encouraging a life‐time habit of giving blood. Prerequisites for improving the effectiveness of donor acquisition and retention strategies are to understand who gives blood, the motivations for giving and for defection as well as the reasons why the majority of eligible donors do not donate. A literature review of blood donor characteristics and motivations sets the contextual background to the field study of some 240 students at a British University and a conceptual model which depicts the behavioural chain of blood donorship is drawn. The implications for donor acquisition, retention and defection management are then outlined. Service quality, solicitation of donor's views and communication strategies are discussed and we conclude with proposals for further research.     

Providing health checks as incentives to retain blood donors — Evidence from two field experiments

The collection of blood given by donors has proven to be a substantial societal and a managerial challenge. Consequently, blood donation services seek for incentive mechanisms to retain donors. However, economic or material rewards might entail negative side effects such as motivational crowding out or even attracting “bad blood”. In an effort to increase the retention of established blood donors, we conducted two randomized field trials (N₁?=?53,257, N₂?=?31,522) in cooperation with the German Red Cross Blood Donation Service and tested the effectiveness of an incentive strategy that is directly related to the blood donation itself: offering a comprehensive blood health check. Contrary to previous related research, we found substantial positive effects of a comprehensive blood health check incentive on donation behavior. In addition, unlike previous studies, we examine effects of repeated exposure to this incentive and do not find any wearout effects. Considering the positive effect of this incentive on donor retention and the relative low cost for providing this service to donors, our findings suggest that offering comprehensive blood health check incentives is a viable and cost-efficient marketing strategy to increase the retention among previous donors even if offered over the longer run.     

An Investigation of the Characteristics of Australian Charitable Donors

Ads using a range of emotional appeals have been used in different donation campaigns, but, if not managed well, can evoke anger and irritation and as a result alienate potential donors. An understanding of the key donors’ demographics, psychographics, and perception of charities can then help build a better advertising campaign toward donation intention. This research therefore aims to investigate this proposition by building and extending on previous research on an Australian sample. The sample was randomly drawn from the Australian White Pages, and identified respondents were mailed a self-administered survey. Results showed that donors are likely to be older and less highly educated. Religiosity was found to have low influence on charitable donations. Australian donors were also more likely to have positive attitudes toward international charities as opposed to national charities. Further research should focus on cross-country comparisons of donor characteristics to provide a more holistic perspective on donor behavior and thus assist managerial decisions in the marketing of charities.     

Perceptions of the Worthiness of a Fund-Raising Organization:

The perceived worthiness of a fund-raising organization relies more on its reputation than on how familiar or "visible" it is. However, its visibility can enhance the organization's reputation, and indirectly influence its perceived worthiness. Also, potential donors take into account whether or not they think they are influenced by the fund-raising organization in making their donation decision. The results of this study of potential donor attitudes have implications for fund-raising strategies.     

Becoming familiar with eternal anonymity: how sperm banks use relationship marketing strategy

The article focuses on donor profiles as a major marketing tool of the fertility industry and proposes some theoretical insights into sperm banking and sperm consumption, using a content analysis of 135 extended sperm donor profiles and a visual analysis of 36 baby photos in nine sperm banks. Theorizing sperm consumption is inspired by Grönroos' conceptualization of relationship marketing (RM). Contrary to conventional logic, I show how RM itself has become a product on its own, rather than a business strategy: while the sperm consumer is invited through anonymously written narratives to become an active prosumer by encoding and decoding parts of the donor's identity, the imaginary relationship with the donor constitutes the core product. Since donor profiles are purchased as a complementary service product, sperm banks activate identity construction among the donors by asking them to provide lengthy essays; donors produce polyphonic narratives and therefore participate in a Bakhtinian mask parade.     

Donor Funding of Multilateral Aid Agencies: Determining Factors and Revealed Burden Sharing

This paper reports an empirical study of the factors affecting burden sharing among OECD's 22 DAC members in ‘bankrolling’ the multilateral aid agencies. Annual data over 1970–2000, pooled across the donor countries, form the basis for the empirical estimation of each donor's share in the ODA aid receipts for each multilateral agency. Our findings suggest the existence of reverse exploitation, i.e., the financial burden of the agencies is disproportionally carried by the smaller donors. The study also finds that factors such as inherent donor generosity, donor concern for domestic egalitarianism, and the extent to which donors are pro‐poor in their bilateral aid policies have an impact on their readiness to support multilateral agencies financially. Size of the donor government and its budgetary balance positively influence burden sharing of contributions to other multilateral agencies. But neither the phase of economic cycle nor the rate of economic growth affects the burden‐sharing responsibility of donors. It was also observed that contributions by EU members to the EC do not appear to crowd‐out their contributions to other multilateral aid agencies and that right‐wing donor governments are generally more parsimonious with regard to financial assistance to multilateral aid agencies. The preferred alternative, particularly among EU member countries, appears to be the EC.     

国内外市场潜力对FDI区位选择的影响研究

本文运用1996-2008年全国276个地级及以上城市和39个我国主要贸易伙伴的面板数据,通过估计固定效应模型,研究了我国城市面对的市场潜力对在华FDI区位选择的影响。为了估计各种市场潜力对FDI流量的不同影响,将市场潜力分为国内和国外市场潜力,并且将国内市场潜力分为省内和省外市场潜力。本文发现一个城市面对的国内市场潜力和国外市场潜力都对该城市吸收FDI具有显著的促进作用,而前者对FDI流量的影响更大。另外,一个城市面对的来自本省的市场潜力将正向影响该城市吸收外资,但来自外省的市场潜力却对该城市的FDI流入无显著影响,这反映了我国国内市场存在分割。     

The Role of Perceptions in Predicting Donor Value

Explores the role of donor perceptions in predicting the value of a donor, both to the voluntary sector as a whole and to specific organisations. Three classes of perceptual variable are examined; perceptions of the performance of the voluntary sector/specific organisations, perceptions of any exchange benefits that might accrue and in cases where a relationship already exists, perceptions of the quality of service quality provided. Drawing on results of an empirical study of 5000 donors to ten large national charities, the paper concludes that all three classes of perceptual variable have the capacity to influence donor value.     

Managing Word-of-Mouth: A Nonprofit Case Study

Word-of-mouth (WOM) is an important influence on the opinions of donors and their donation behaviors. Against a background of more professional donor relationship management, we investigate about how, if at all, nonprofits (NP) manage WOM. We report an in-depth case study of a single NP. We find that there is widespread appreciation that WOM influences NP performance indirectly through its impact on donor acquisition, donor loyalty, and organizational reputation. Whilst the organization employs networking and WOM practices, it stresses the reduction of negative WOM (NWOM) rather than the promotion of positive WOM (PWOM). Crisis management dominates the NP's WOM-related thinking. We find that PWOM emanates from many organizational influences including donor satisfaction, the welfare service itself, networking practices, external suppliers, alliances, its officers and communication practices including both advertising and public relations. We apply a new model, the eight pillars of WOM, to our analysis of WOM management in the case organization.     

The UK Development Aid Programme and the British domestic economy

The effects of development aid programmes on the domestic economy of donors are relatively infrequently examined. This study reviews the impact of the United Kingdom’s Development Aid Programme on the British economy over the period 1975–79 with particular attention to employment creation and multiplier effects both in aggregate and by industrial sector. Some comparisons are made with German experience. Also examined are the types of companies which benefit from aid-financed orders, the implications for the donor’s own assisted regions and potential benefit to normal commercial trade. It is argued that a greater awareness of these effects should create a more favourable climate for the increase in aid levels.     

劳动力市场分割加剧了工资扭曲吗?--来自中国省际工业部门的经验证据

本文基于超越对数生产函数的随机前沿分析( SFA)方法测算中国省际工业部门的工资扭曲指数,通过可有效控制内生性问题的系统广义矩估计方法考察劳动力市场分割等因素对工资扭曲程度的影响,发现中国省际工业部门的工资扭曲程度要比现有研究结论严重得多,工资扭曲程度呈加重态势;西北偏远地区的劳动力市场分割程度较重,东部沿海省份的劳动力市场分割程度较轻;在控制相关因素后,劳动力市场分割将加剧工资扭曲程度。因此,逐步消除各省市之间的劳动力市场分割现象,可有效缓解中国工业部门的工资扭曲程度。     

The Importance of Understanding Donor Preference and Relationship Cultivation Strategies

Relationship cultivation has been identified as a critical component of fundraising success. Cultivation strategies derived from interpersonal communication theory were identified and evaluated by the donors and fundraising team members from three nonprofit hospitals. Using co‐orientation methodology, statistical analysis reveals that donors and fundraisers agree that the six strategies are beneficial. However, their perceptions that they hold similar views as the other side were not accurate in terms of the magnitude of the ratings. These differences are discussed and suggestions are provided to bring both sides of the nonprofit organization‐donor relationship closer to agreement.     

Intercollegiate Athletics as an Institutional Fundraising Tool: An Exploratory Donor-Based View

Previous research has indicated that intercollegiate athletics programs may be successful at attracting new donors to higher education institutions. Research has also shown that major donors who support both athletic and academic programs at an institution give more total dollars to the institution than other donors and are retained at higher rates. Through 65 in-depth interviews with donors making gifts to both athletic and academic programs at NCAA FBS (top athletic division) institutions, this exploratory research seeks to understand how intercollegiate programs influence donor decisions. Donors were questioned as to their motives for giving, specific changes in their historical giving patterns, and their future giving intentions. Several consistent themes emerged from donor interviews that provide insight into previous empirical findings and direction for both fundraising practice and future research.     

International Segmentation Using Biplots: A Diffusion Approach

ABSTRACT

Studies on segmentation based on the diffusion of innovations have primarily focused on new products in developed countries, whereas research in emerging economies focusing on products at a maturity or declining stage has been relatively scarce. In this study, the authors address this problem by analyzing the diffusion trends of 31 durable goods across 70 developed, emerging, or less-developed countries over three decades. They propose a dynamic time-dependent segmentation approach that segments countries based directly on the time-varying diffusion patterns of durable goods. The authors find that biplots provide a rich summary of international diffusion patterns that prevent managers over/under predicting penetration.