Choosing your charity: The importance of value congruence in two-stage donation choices

Abstract

Charitable donations constitute choices, and donors' values influence both the choice to donate and the selected nonprofit organization (NPO). The current study proposes a new instrument to measure NPO values. The proposed two-stage analytical procedure is novel in this research area. The first stage shows that the personal value of universalism drives the general decision to donate. The second stage reveals that donating to a specific NPO depends on the congruency between the NPO values of the organization and the individual donor's NPO values. Furthermore, distinct NPO values are relevant to donation decisions such that NPO values can attract a particular type of donor to an NPO. These findings have pertinent implications for NPOs' chosen positioning strategies as it allows NPOs to collectively guard the qualities that increase general donations and individually distinguish themselves based on the specific NPO values that ensure alignment with their own donors.

Feed the world or help the heroes? Exploring how political attitudes influence charitable choice

“…Charitable giving research traditionally focuses on reasons for donating (Andorfer & Otte, 2013;Bennett, 2003), although we have recently witnessed increasing outputs focusing specifically on how donors select charities to support (Chapman et al, 2018;Feeny et al, 2019;Neumayr & Handy, 2019;van Dijk et al, 2019). It has been suggested that donors do not necessarily deliberate extensively when selecting charities but base their choices on heuristic cues such as the credibility of charity patrons or friendships with fundraisers (Breeze, 2013).…”

Effects of Nature Values and Regulatory Fit of Message Framing on Message Evaluation and Actual Pro-Environmental Donations

“…Finally, the present work responds to calls for research that measures actual behavior (e.g., Baumeister et al, 2007;Furr, 2009), especially when aiming to gain insight into people's choices and decisions (e.g., Morales et al, 2017). However, to the best of our knowledge, only one study investigated the impact of personal values on actual donations to pro-environmental charities (e.g., Clements et al, 2015; see also van Dijk et al, 2019, for donations to various charities). As such, it is important to investigate whether the effect of values on actual donations would replicate when tested in a very different manner.…”

How does relationship length influence donation amount over time for regular members of nonprofit organizations – the moderating role of donation frequency

“…Financial support is critical to nonprofit organizations, since it enables them to fund their charitable programs – aimed at providing a wide variety of public services, including educational, health, essential community services or those with an environmental purpose – and legitimizes their existence (Bolton, 2020; Cheung et al. , 2017; van Dijk et al. , 2019).…”

“…In an attempt to respond to these societal challenges, service scholars highlight the need for creating relevant research that improves well-being (Ostrom et al, 2015;Rahman, 2020) and underscore the central role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their societal relevance within the service ecosystem (Finsterwalder et al, 2021). Financial support is critical to nonprofit organizations, since it enables them to fund their charitable programsaimed at providing a wide variety of public services, including educational, health, essential community services or those with an environmental purposeand legitimizes their existence (Bolton, 2020;Cheung et al, 2017;van Dijk et al, 2019).…”