How to give and receive: An exploratory study of charitable hybrids

✍ Scribed by Michael K. Brady; Charles H. Noble; Deborah J. Utter; Gerald E. Smith

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2002
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 210 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0742-6046
• DOI: 10.1002/mar.10044

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Most charitable organizations can only rely on appeals to purely philanthropic motivations in attempting to solicit donor contributions. The decision processes exhibited by the targets of charitable solicitations are very different from those the same individuals use in making daily purchase decisions. Although both charitable giving and purchase contexts have been studied extensively, there are numerous organizations that require targeted customers to use a decision process that merges elements of both domains. Charitable hybrids, such as museums and universities, are such organizations, supplementing traditional revenue streams by soliciting charitable contributions, thus evoking a complex consumer decision process. For these firms, giving good service may yield an added benefit of maximizing charitable contributions received. Drawing on both the services and charitable giving literatures, a model of the consumer decision process is developed in this hybrid situation. In an exploratory test of the model, initial evidence is found that both classes of effects have significant influence on donors' intentions to give. However, in charitable giving contexts, organizational identification appears to fill a central role in influencing decision outcomes, which diminishes the role of satisfaction. The findings provide provocative evidence that further research in this setting is warranted. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.