Optimal location of electronic charity boxes in charity NGOs by proposing a combined mathematical model

Abstract

The topic of collecting public donations has always attracted the attention of charity Non-Governmental Organizations as their basic policy; nevertheless, despite its importance, not much scientific research has been conducted on the issue. The optimal location of electronic charity boxes is effective in optimizing the obtained benefits. In this paper, for the first time in the literature, a location problem is defined with the aim of maximizing people's motivation for money donation. We propose a new model to find the optimal location of e-charity boxes across the city with an aim to maximize the total amount of received benefits, as well as the total amount of donation motivation. To reach this aim, the effective criteria on the amount of gathered donation in each district and in each location type are investigated separately. Then, considering some constraints of the problem, a new mathematical model is proposed in order to determine the optimal location of e-charity boxes. We solve the model using LP-Metric, SAW, and TOPSIS methods, as a combination of Multi-Objective and Multi-Attributes Decision Making methods. Besides, we run the model in a real case study and 80 final locations are specified as the optimal locations in the studied city.