Laypeople’s Belief of the Influence of Thank-You Gifts on Charitable Giving

Although offering gifts to encourage prosocial behaviors is a popular daily strategy, its underlying mechanism remains unknown. This study investigated the effect of thank-you gifts on charitable giving in laypeople’s beliefs ( N = 1,293). Study 1 showed that laypeople believe thank-you gifts increase charitable giving. Study 2 found that laypeople believe thank-you gifts increase both charitable giving and positive emotions of donors. Study 3 further showed that laypeople’s anticipation of donors’ emotional gain might play a mediating role in the effect of thank-you gifts on charitable giving. Study S1 found that participants’ donated amounts in the benefit-to-others thank-you gifts condition exceeded other conditions on actual donation behavior. These findings emphasize the emotional value of the gift in laypeople’s beliefs.

Share Rose, Get Fun: The Influence of Donation on Happiness

There is little literature on the impact of donation on individual wellbeing in China. This study examines individual donations in China to answer the question of whether helping others makes us happier and to provide policy implications for in Chinese context. Based on the 2012 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data and using ordered logit and OLS as benchmark models, this study finds that donation can significantly increase individual happiness. After using propensity score matching (PSM) to eliminate the possible impact of self-selection, the above conclusion remains robust. After a sub-sample discussion, it is found that this effect is more pronounced under completely voluntary donation behavior, and is not affected by economic factors, indicating that the happiness effect of donation does not vary significantly depending on the individual’s economic status. This study contributes to the literature on donation behavior by examining the impact of donation behavior on donors’ subjective happiness in China, and further identifies subjective happiness differences, as between voluntary and involuntary donations, thereby providing theoretical and empirical support for the formulation of policies for the development of donation institutions in China.

Sustaining Business Beyond Corporate Hypocrisy: Social Distance and Corporate Social Initiatives

The involvement of firms in charitable initiatives has been put into practice utilizing direct corporate donations, corporate volunteering, and cause-related marketing. Despite the popularity of such marketing tools, consumers have become skeptical of such practices. The corporate sector and charity organizations struggle to channel more resources toward charity causes. In light of this, the study investigates how value-driven individual differences – self-construal – moderate the relationship between social distance and donation behavior. The results of two experiments reveal that, when individuals evaluate donation options jointly, social distance evokes a mental process through which individuals tend to go for time donations, if the event is organized by someone similar, whereas individuals tend to choose the money donation option if the event is organized by someone dissimilar. The interaction effect is well pronounced, concerning money donations compared to time donations. Moreover, the lower social distance attenuates skepticism towards Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

An experimental comparison of rebate and matching in charitable giving: The case of Japan

This study uses a Japanese nationwide sample and experimentally compares rebate and matching, both of which are schemes intended to lower the price of monetary donation. Standard economic theory predicts that the two schemes will have the same effect on individuals’ donation behavior when their donation price is equivalent. However, we conduct an incentivized economic experiment through the Internet on 2300 Japanese residents, and find that matching, which lowers the donation price by adding a contribution from a third-party, increases individuals’ donation expenditures compared to rebate, which lowers it through a refund from a third-party. The experimental result shows that the donation expenditure in a 50% rebate treatment drops by approximately 126 Japanese yen compared to the control, while in a 1:1 matching treatment with essentially the same price of donation as the 50% rebate, the expenditure conversely rises by approximately 56 Japanese yen. This tendency is consistent with the results of previous experimental studies comparing the two schemes. We further empirically confirm that the superiority of 1:1 matching over 50% rebate is not conclusively influenced by the participants’ confusion or misunderstanding, or budget constraint lines’ difference between the two schemes. Although the Japanese government has previously enriched rebate’s content, the level of monetary donations by the Japanese people is still low on an international scale. Based on this study’s findings, we discuss the possibility that implementing matching into the society effectively encourages their donation behavior.

Kampanye Infak di Media Sosial dan Niat Perilaku Infak Masyarakat Saat Pandemi Covid-19

The development of donation collection and public donation behavior has been increasingly visible since the Covid 19 outbreak spread to various countries in the world, including Indonesia. Optimizing the use of social media for the zakat infaq alms campaign and the use of electronic services for paying zakat infaq alms are two phenomena that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus of this research is on the determinants of infaq behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the intention of the Indonesian Muslim community in paying infaq through fundraisers who carry out infaq campaigns on social media. For this reason, the variables of trust in infaq fundraisers who carry out infaq campaigns on social media and attitudes towards online infaq and social media features are used to test their intention to pay infaq. All of these variables were tested using primary data from questionnaires distributed to social media users who are Muslim and live in the DKI Jakarta, Bogor and South Tangerang areas. The PLS SEM analysis technique was used in this study to assess the measurement model, structural model and its predictive relevance. The results showed that trust in infaq fundraisers and attitudes towards online infaq as well as social media features used by infaq fundraisers had a significant effect on their intention to pay infaq through infaq fundraisers who carried out social solidarity campaigns on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic.

EXPRESS: Leveraging Creativity in Charity Marketing: The Impact of Engaging in Creative Activities on Subsequent Donation Behavior

Charities are constantly looking for new and more effective ways to engage potential donors in order to secure the resources needed to deliver their services. The current work demonstrates that creative activities are one way for marketers to meet this challenge. A set of field and lab studies show that engaging potential donors in creative activities positively influences their donation behaviors (i.e., the likelihood of donation and the monetary amount donated). Importantly, the observed effects are shown to be context independent: they hold even when potential donors engage in creative activities unrelated to the focal cause of the charity (or the charitable organization itself). The findings suggest that engaging in a creative activity enhances the felt autonomy of the participant, thus inducing a positive affective state, which in turn leads to higher donation behaviors. Positive affect is shown to enhance donation behaviors due to perceptions of donation impact and a desire for mood maintenance. However, the identified effects emerge only when one engages in a creative activity—not when the activity is non-creative, or when only the concept of creativity itself is made salient.

Do reputational signals matter for nonprofit organizations? An experimental study

PurposeThis paper aims to untangle the underlying mechanisms through which reputational signals promote stakeholders' intentions to donate in nonprofit organizations via stakeholder trust.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply a moderated mediation model using an experimental design with N = 248 business and public management students of France.FindingsThe results indicate that both a formal reputational signal (third-party certificate) and an informal reputational signal (self-proclaiming to be social entrepreneurial) affect stakeholder trust and intentions to donate. Stakeholder trust partially mediated the relationship between the formal signal and intentions to donate, and the mediation effect was stronger when an informal signal was present (vs. not present).Practical implicationsTrust is central to the exchange of nonprofit organizations and their external stakeholders. To enhance trust and supportive behavior toward nonprofit organizations, these organizations may consider using formal and informal reputational signaling within their marketing strategies.Originality/valueThis research highlights the pivotal role of formal and informal reputational signals for the enhancing stakeholders' trust and donation behavior in a nonprofit context.