Targeting wealthy donors: the dichotomous relationship of housing wealth with current and bequest giving

Identifying the charitable potential of current and prospective donors is a key component of successful fund‐raising, particularly in the areas of major gifts and planned giving. Previous research has provided support for the positive impact of two core financial factors, total wealth, and homeownership. Using data from the USA and Australia, this paper examines how the interaction of these two variables can generate negative effects on charitable giving. In particular, as the share of total wealth held in homeownership rises, both the likelihood and level of charitable giving falls. This relationship is consistent across current giving, planned bequest giving, and actual bequest giving and in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models. These findings suggest that prospect research models incorporating asset type, as well as total wealth, may better predict likely donor potential. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of nonprofit brand equity on individual giving intention: mediating by the self‐concept of individual donor

• Currently nonprofit organizations have to rely more on individual donors and less on the government for funding. Therefore, understanding the individual donor from the perspective of nonprofit has been of increasing interest to nonprofit marketers. In this research, the effects of nonprofit organizational brand equity and individual self‐concept on individual giving intention were studied by using survey to selected 393 valid respondents in China. The empirical results indicated that, (1) the three dimensions brand personality, brand image, and brand awareness of the nonprofit organization has positive direct impact on individual giving intention; (2) brand personality and brand awareness of the nonprofit organization has positive direct impact on the self‐concept of individual donor; (3) the self‐concept of individual donor has positive direct impact on individual giving intention; and (4) the self‐concept of individual donor mediates significantly the relationships between brand personality, brand awareness, and individual giving intention, while not significantly between brand image and individual giving intention.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Translational Global Praxis: Rethinking Methods and Modes of African Urban Research

Advancing global urbanism depends upon making Africa's cities a more dominant part of the global urban narrative. Constructing a more legitimate research agenda for African cities, however, necessitates a repositioning of conventional modes of research. To achieve intellectual and political traction in what are typical African research conditions—where human needs are great, information is poor, conditions of governance are complex and the reality is changeable—we reflect on the experiences of the African Centre for Cities where (alongside conventional use of theory, methods and data) a translational mode of working has been adopted. The notion of translational urban research praxis captures more than the idea of applied research or even co‐production, and encompasses integrating the research conception, design, execution, application and reflection—and conceiving of this set of activities as a singular research/practice process that is by its nature deeply political and locationally embedded. In this way we suggest that African urbanism can be both usefully illuminated by global theories and methods, and can simultaneously be constitutive of the reform of the ideas through which cities generally are understood.     

The Social Marketing of Giving

Abstract

Despite significant government efforts to bolster individual philanthropy, giving by individuals (as a percentage of household income) has remained remarkably static and participation in many western countries is declining. This article explores the role that governments might play in facilitating growth, from a social marketing perspective. Drawing on research from multiple domains this article proposes an easily accessible and actionable framework (1) to inform public policy and (2) to guide further impactful academic research, with the objective of increasing both participation in, and the monetary value of, individual giving.     

Alumni Donations and Colleges’Development Expenditures: Does Spending Matter?

Since college development officers supply recognition to alumni and seek donations in return a model is devised wherein this exercise of market power in the exchange is included. Data for three years is used from eighteen universities and colleges-public and private, large and small, research and teaching oriented. The findings indicate that schools with higher development costs generate substantially more donations. Several demographic characteristics of the student body were tested. Schools with higher participation in fraternities and sororities have higher giving, while schools with a higher proportion of part-time students have lower giving. Surprisingly, having an NCAA Division I athletic program has no significant effect on alumni giving. Likewise, alumni donations seem independent of whether a school is public or private, or is or is not a research institution. Finally, the size of a school's endowment has no predictive value, but the level of annual bequests is strongly positively related to alumni giving.     

Holier than thou: Investigating the relationship between religiosity and charitable giving

One's religiosity (or lack thereof) is the touchstone from which people view and interact with the world. The presumed positive impact of religiosity on charitable giving, however, may be an oversimplification. The present study takes a more nuanced approach to the subject and investigates the impact of 2 potential mediators (attitudes toward helping others, AHO, and attitudes toward charitable organizations) and 1 moderator (materialism) on the religiosity–charitable giving relationship. Study results suggest that religiosity has a positive effect on attitudes toward charitable organizations, AHO, and donating to charity. Religiosity was also found to have an indirect impact on charitable giving via AHO. Materialism interacted with AHO, such that the indirect effect of religiosity on charitable giving through AHO is attenuated as materialism increases. Implications of the present research for better understanding charitable giving are discussed.     

Print media portrayals of giving: exploring national ‘cultures of philanthropy’

In their 2010 study drawing on 500 empirical philanthropy studies, Bekkers and Wiepking identified eight consistently significant giving mechanisms. The pilot study reported here extends what is known about one mechanism, values, as a giving driver, in particular considering how national cultural values apply to giving. Personal values are not formed in a vacuum. They are influenced by the wider culture and society: thus values have a socio-cultural dimension. Accordingly, this pilot research draws on media theory and cultural studies work on national ethos to explore how these national cultural values interact with giving. A directed qualitative content analysis has been undertaken to compare US and Australian print media coverage about philanthropy. The two nations share an Anglo–Saxon orientation but differ significantly in national character and philanthropic activity. This study posits that a nation's media coverage about giving will reflect its national cultural ethos. This coverage can also shape personal values, thus implications exist for theory about the antecedents of personal giving values. Wider national values may drive or stifle giving, so this wider view of values as a driver has implications also for philanthropy promotion and fundraising. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate giving in the Netherlands 1995-2003: exploring the amounts involved and the motivations for donating

• Corporate giving as an expression of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been researched less than the more general theme of CSR. In addition, much of the research in this area focuses on countries with an Anglo cultural tradition.
• The study outlined in this paper offers a comprehensive longitudinal study of corporate giving in the Netherlands. An overview is provided of corporate giving in the Netherlands in the period from 1995 till 2003.
• The data are gathered by means of a biennial survey of Dutch companies as part of the ‘Giving in the Netherlands’ project. Based on these findings, recent developments in corporate giving can be sketched out.
• Moreover, literature on motives for corporate giving behavior is focused upon and applied in exploring Dutch managers' motivations for offering donations. Nonprofit organizations could use this knowledge to increase the efficiency of their fund raising.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relational exchange in nonprofits: The role of identity saliency and relationship satisfaction

In practice and research pertaining to charitable giving, the emphasis has been on identifying the characteristics and motivations of donors, but few have asked why donors continue to support a particular nonprofit. This study examines the relationship between renewing donors and nonprofits and their impact on charitable giving levels using identity salience and relationship satisfaction as key mediators of nonprofit relational exchange. In a survey of 719 repeat donors in the United States, to a broad range of nonprofit organizations, identity saliency and relationship satisfaction are introduced as mediating constructs, and the results confirm that both constructs partially guide donor motivations and charitable giving. Theoretically, this suggests that the more a donor identifies with a nonprofit organization and the more satisfied the donor is in the relationship with the organization, the higher their intention to donate. This finding supports previous research in segmentation strategies and service‐dominant logic in the nonprofit sector. Managerial implications of this research include indication of a paradigmatic shift from relational exchange to transformational exchange (or value cocreation) in nonprofit organizations' approach to donor cultivation.     

Identity Building Through Mediation by African Tailors

In contemporary African cities, dressing well and wearing exclusive garments has become crucial for people in search of identity, distinction and individuality. The research presented in this article, situated at disciplinary intersections of cultural studies, fashion practices and sustainability, provides a case study of African tailors conducted in Maputo and Lisbon, with a special focus on identity building of African immigrants in Portugal. However, the role of tailors in this acculturation process has been ignored in the consumption approach to creative cities. This study is therefore also a reaction to the mainly Western world of regular couture, and to ‘creative city materials’ that focus on consumption. Instead, we emphasize the importance of African tailors who de facto shape urban experiences—visually incrementing practices—that are fundamental to the comprehension of sartorial culture, while we also allude to the complex intersections between local and global markets. In the first part of this article we describe a semi-ethnographic study among tailors in Maputo and Lisbon. The second part presents a participatory action approach that entailed developing an educational programme for African tailors where culture and creativity meet. This programme empowered tailors to tap into their cultural knowledge on tailoring and their awareness of community identity. In our study we argue that the idea of creative cities and their creative economy should be approached from a cultural perspective, by building awareness of the importance of local creative classes instead of focusing on importing those classes.     

The estimates of philanthropic behavior and attitude in South Korea: Methodological consideration

Estimates on philanthropic giving are one of the major topics within nonprofit studies globally. South Korea has engaged in measuring philanthropic behaviors and attitudes since the early 2000s, however, little is known about the validity of the measures that are used to collect giving and volunteering data. This study aims to investigate the methodological matters of the empirical philanthropy datasets in South Korea. A total of nine datasets were identified that measure philanthropic behaviors and attitudes in South Korea. Among the nine datasets, six were used to analyze the methodological matters for the purposes of this study. This article discusses the challenges associated with research methods including definitional challenges, instrument design issues, and other research methodological issues on the identified philanthropic giving datasets in South Korea. Results of this study suggest insights for improving measures of charitable giving and volunteering in South Korea. The findings are significant because differences in approaches to measuring donation behavior produce substantial differences in reported estimates.     

Online social network fundraising: Threats and potentialities

There has been a growth in online fundraising from crowdfunding apps, like GoFundMe, that propagate fundraising appeals on social networking sites. In the online space, these crowdfunding apps pose a potential threat to the traditional intermediation role of charities. The disintermediation threat is that donors choose crowdfunding intermediaries instead of charities to channel their giving. In this article, we discuss what makes crowdsourced fundraising effective and how charities can adapt to this new dynamic for more effective online fundraising emphasizing two key success factors: brand strength/reputation and managing the donor experience. In addition, we explain the advantages and disadvantages of social media fundraising and giving and propose ways charities can leverage their good reputations and public trust to stimulate reintermediation. Finally, we propose a landscape for future research based on model that emphases the fundraising campaign's ability to stimulate viral sharing within and between online social networks.     

Researching the crowd: Implications on philanthropic crowdfunding and donor characteristics during a pandemic

New online forms of giving have appeared next to more traditional ways like door-to-door collections. One of these new forms is philanthropic crowdfunding: donation- and reward-based crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is a promising method for mobilising and recruiting donors who may be unreachable via traditional methods. We analysed online giving via crowdfunding, focusing on donor characteristics and giving behaviour before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis comprises survey research (n = 2125) observing giving behaviour on an individual level for both donors and non-donors. Our contributions are twofold. First, we report on the characteristics of donors who give to crowdfunding sources and in relation to donors who give via a door-to-door (i.e., ‘traditional’) collection focusing on micro- rather than macro-level data. Second, we compare the giving behaviour via crowdfunding with references to door-to-door collections before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We show that the percentage of individuals supporting crowdfunding did not increase between 2018 (11%) and 2020 (12%). Regarding the amount, donors donated 13% higher amounts in 2020, but the difference was not significant. Regarding the characteristics of donors, we find that social media has a substantive role in giving via crowdfunding irrespective of other personal markers such as age, education, income, and gender, while this is not relevant in the case of door-to-door collection. Moreover, most people give to crowdfunding projects that are connected to an acquaintance, which signals that familiarity with the person initiating the crowdfunding projects plays a role. We conclude that crowdfunding, relative to more traditional giving, focuses more on informal giving than formal giving. Such an understanding requires different strategies and stimuli to increase giving via crowdfunding.     

Religious Giving by Individuals: A Cross Denominational Study

Abstract Empirical research to date has provided some evidence on factors important to the determination of religious giving as well as to cross denominational differences in religious giving patterns. For example, regression based models of religious giving, typically utilizing data on congregations and congregational contributions, lend considerable support to the observation that Catholics contribute less in amount and as a share of income than do Protestants. A number of possible explanations for this difference can be offered. Two often cited reasons are: (1) a lower estimated marginal propensity to give out of income for Catholics than for Protestants and (2) the more formalized structure of the giving process found in Protestant denominations. Here data on religious giving by individuals of different denominations is used to estimate a single equation econometric model using (a) the least squares and (b) the Tobit techniques. The least squares results corroborate past findings regarding differences in the religious giving of Catholics and Protestants. Unlike past results, however, the Tobit results reported suggest that though income is a statistically significant factor in the religious giving for both groups and the marginal impacts are actually higher for Catholics than for Protestants.     

Segmenting the Belgian charitable sector: The impact of environmental factors on households' generosity

Research on charitable giving has known a renewed interest over the last years. Despite a recent evolution, the literature remains predominantly Anglo‐Saxon, and studies are consequently conducted in societies marked by a strong charitable giving culture. In that respect, donors are generally considered as isolated individuals, and the impact of social and environmental factors such as public policies, institutional specificities, and punctual events is often underestimated. Moreover, research on generosity often suffers from the absence of reliable data, free of desirability bias. Based on fiscal data of tax returns and gift tax returns provided by the official Belgian statistics bureau, this research investigates individual donating behaviors while considering the influence of environmental determinants on generosity. More specifically, we empirically assess the generosity of Belgian households over a period of 8 years marked by natural disasters, massive calls for public generosity, and changes in tax policies. Among other things, we qualify the results of previous research on the role of age and open the debate on the role of household composition as a variable for segmenting donors. Finally, we propose leads for future research in order to stimulate further academic effort on the topic.     

Charitable giving and cognitive ability

• This paper presents the first detailed examination of the relationship between cognitive ability and charitable giving using both cross‐sectional and longitudinal analysis. Data from a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of U.S. adults over age 50 indicated that higher cognitive ability—measured through a variety of cognitive tests—was associated with a higher probability of charitable giving, even after controlling for such intervening mechanisms as age, income, wealth, health, and education. This was true in comparisons both across different people at one point in time and within the same persons at different points in time. Understanding this relationship may affect the content and timing of appropriate charitable marketing approaches and help to explain other associations found in previous research on charitable giving.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How and why small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) engage with their communities: an Australian study

• While many studies address corporate philanthropy and corporate community involvement, limited work has been conducted internationally in small to medium businesses and even less has been elucidated about the Australian small business landscape.
• This article reports findings from qualitative research investigating giving to community causes by 52 small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) across Australia.
• Three key questions addressed in this article are: (1) why SMEs engage with community (2) how they engage with community and (3) obstacles they perceive in giving.
• Our findings suggest that SMEs have a preference to avoid cash gifts, prefer to support local causes and would benefit from the development of best practice giving guidelines and templates.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Marketing a new African God: Pentecostalism and material salvation in Ghana

• Pentecostalism is an American creation that has been exported to various parts of the world. Its message of hope is produced and promoted by churches that are led by religious entrepreneurial salespeople who create value for customers through the use of marketing techniques that facilitate the blending of the local and the global; the sacred and the profane. Its success in Africa has been attributed to the African penchant for connecting every human experience to the religious. Using the marketing strategic framework of target market and four Ps as an organization tool, we draw on a year-long ethnography in Kumasi, Ghana, to suggest that Pentecostalism in Ghana is marketed as an effective route to material success without risk to postmortem salvation. While the effective blend of the sacred and the profane allows for open public discourse, it fails to deliver on its promise of economic salvation for the poor. In fact, it causes the condition of the poor to deteriorate even further through application of its fundamental requirement: give and God will bless you according to the extent of your giving. We conclude that the new African Pentecostalism and its open embrace of contemporary consumption and materialism have arrested local religiosity and imposed an “economic imperialism” that impregnates every human experience with a commercial character.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lost in translation: A sociological study of the role of fundraisers in mediating gift giving in non-profit organisations

Recent years have seen a significant growth in the technical literature exploring charitable giving and fundraising. However, there is little empirical research on the actual workings of the fundraising process within non-profit organisations. In this paper, the day-to-day practice of fundraising is analysed from a sociological perspective that draws on the theories of the gift proposed by Mauss ( 1954 ), Titmuss ( 1970 ), and colleagues to propose an alternative, more complex giving model to strangers. Using qualitative data drawn from 44 interviews with fundraisers and their colleagues across 14 organisations, this study examines how fundraisers build and maintain long-term giving relationships with the individuals who provide financial support to non-profit organisations. Findings suggest that the primary gift giving relationship exists not between the giver and beneficiary but rather between the giver and fundraiser. The fundraiser, in this instance, actively employs tactics of reciprocity to both secure new gifts and ensure that givers continue to support their organisation. In doing so, fundraisers construct a narrative of the donor's imagined direct connection to the beneficiary and their “good gift”. Simultaneously, the fundraiser works with colleagues to construct the idea of the caring, connected, and sacrificial donor as a means to solicit their support in maintaining the continued gifting from these supporters. The paper concludes with a consideration of the ways in which these narrative constructions are incorporated into fundraising and organisational strategies; and two implications for perceptions of the role of philanthropy and fundraising.     

Gift giving: an interdisciplinary review

• The issue of why individuals choose to support charity has been the focus of considerable research in the disciplines of economics, psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology and more recently, management and marketing. This paper draws together extant work, developing a content model of giving behavior that fundraisers may use to inform their professional practice. A number of specific propositions are developed from the literature to assist in this goal. The paper provides summary tables of existing empirical studies categorized by the dimensions of the model, explores ambiguity in research findings, and concludes by highlighting opportunities for further research

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.