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Do Facebook Friends Make Me Donate? Factors Involved in Online Donations via SNS
Abstract
Various social media platforms allow people to participate in activities on social causes, including donating money online. We have sought to clarify internal (attitudes toward online donation, social identification, cause involvement, relationships with SNS connectors) and external factors (perception of SNS features) that predict the publics’ behavioral intentions, such as online donation and sharing words via SNS. This study conducted an online survey to examine the proposed hypotheses based on the literature review. The results of regressions show that social identification, cause involvement, and relationships with SNS connectors predict the intention to donate via SNS, while social identification, cause involvement, relationships with SNS connectors, and perception of SNS features affect the intention of Word-of-Mouth. Theoretical and practical implications are presented in the discussion and conclusion.
... To predict donation behaviour, research has consistently focused on motivational theories (Florenthal and Awad, 2021). The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) assumes that predictions about an individual's behaviour can best be made by establishing their behavioural intention (Sura et al., 2017;Kim and Park, 2023). TPB has previously been considered as a theoretical framework in various research studies based on non-profit organizations (Knowles et al., 2012;Mittelman and Rojas-Mendez, 2018), demonstrating its validity and value. ...
... Attitudes towards online donations depend on trust in the NGO and not on the perception of technology, especially when a person has had previous positive experiences relating to donations (Kim and Park, 2023). Strong ties and emotional attitudes towards a non-profit organization can cause a much higher desire for donor involvement (Florenthal and Awad, 2021). ...
International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operate worldwide to fulfil important needs and issues faced by global communities, but they are highly dependent on donations. Social media facilitates communication with potential donors but exposes them to fake news. This study examines the effect of a set of predictors of social media users’ intention to donate online to international NGOs, using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a conceptual structure. A self-administered online survey was used to collect data from 1629 potential donors to INGOs, and structural equation modelling with SmartPLS 3.0 was employed for assessing the model. The study reveals that social media usage and INGOs’ brand reputation positively impact the sharing of fake news, perceived risks of online donations, attitude towards online donations, and brand image of INGOs. Communication specialists could utilise these insights to boost online donations towards INGOs in the age of misinformation.
... In the broadest terms, contribution data demonstrate that campaign spending on various forms of digital outreach has greatly accelerated in the 2010s, with 2020 proving to be a watershed year (Sheingate et al. 2022). In lockstep with this pattern, there can be little doubt that the technology for low-cost donor prospecting has greatly advanced though digital means, not only through campaign websites and email, but also on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Kim and Park 2023;Saxton and Wang 2014). The national parties responded by fielding ActBlue (2004) and WinRed (2019), Democratic and Republican online sites, that encourage easy, direct, impulse donating to each party's candidates nationwide (Kim and Li 2023;Kim 2021;Bouton et al. 2022; Arbour 2020; Albert and LaRaja 2020). ...
Over the last twenty years, a remarkable surge in small donor contributing has been observed throughout the United States. Little is known, however, about the geographic origin of these small donors. We know that large donors tend to concentrate in established centers of affluence in major metropolitan areas. These locations are home to dense donor networks that can be readily tapped by candidates and campaigns. In this research, we ask whether the impressive emergence of small donors is observed in the same places the large donations spring from, or whether these donors occupy a distinct, more dispersed, geography. If these small donors are just scaled-down replicants of the traditional large donors, we would expect them to be found in the same places, just contributing less. If the new donors are emerging from places where donations are traditionally scarce, then perhaps this development is more politically significant. We find that small donor fundraising has had a centrifugal impact on the campaign playing field, bringing fundraising into closer congruence with vote seeking. The democratization of campaign finance is well underway in some states, and so is the lively debate about whether it is a positive or a negative for the political system.
... RRP, as a form of eWOM (Guo, 2012) influences consumer behavior (Wirtz & Chew, 2002), and the TPB has been successfully applied in different advertising areas as an indicator to behavior intention (e.g. E. Kim & Park, 2023;Raza et al., 2019;Sanne & Wiese, 2018). It is important to investigate not only one's perception of taking part in an RRP though their attitude, but also the subjective norm which includes the influence of reference groups. ...
Referral reward programs (RRPs), considered as a form of stimulated word-of-mouth (WOM), provide incentives to existing customers to bring in new customers. The research here adds to previous knowledge by exploring the usage of referral codes for high and low-involvement products in three stages of the consumer decision journey, on a sample of 218 consumers analyzed by regression analysis. Results show that components of the Theory of Planned Behavior influence the behavioral intention toward participating in an RRP, with perceived behavioral control having the strongest effect, followed by subjective norm and Attitude. Referral codes have a significant effect on respondents’ behavior; high conformity of high-involvement products and low conformity of low-involvement products was found, with referral programs having a weaker effect on high-involvement products. Customers tend to follow all steps of the traditional consumer journey when buying a high-involvement product; in the case of low involvement products, low conformity was even lower when using a referral code. Low-involvement products at the need recognition stage, and high-involvement products at the active research stage, are the least affected by the RRP. Results provide insights for companies to optimize their marketing strategy through stimulated WOM, and with the usage of RRPs.
Ubiquitous emergent technologies including social media (SM) dramatically impact human lives: the way we live, learn, communicate and do our business. Despite its darker side, people make use of social media’s transformative potential to advance socio-economic-political narratives and for catalysing public engagement for social causes. This case study illustrates how a group of women social entrepreneurs in Food For Chennai (FFC), India, innovatively used social media, mobilized more than 250 volunteers, and saved more than 40,000 COVID-19 patients in a month through efficient and virtual operation. Data were collected via telephonic interviews using semi-structured questionnaires with founders and 20 other volunteers. While the findings can demonstrate that social media can serve as a catalyst for social change, especially in times of crisis, they may not be generalizable. Future researchers could employ a comparative, quantitative approach for broader validation.
Due to the advancement of information and communication technologies, online donations have become unprecedentedly convenient, making money received from individual online donations an important form of revenue for many charitable organizations in China. However, factors contributing to people’s online donation intentions, in turn impacting donating behavior, have been under-examined. The current study aims to understand factors influencing online donation intention in the Chinese cultural context by combining constructs from the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; including the original TPB constructs and moral norm) and trust-related constructs (i.e., trust in charity organizations and trust in technology). The moderation effect of past donation behavior on the relationship between trust and donation intention was also explored. A total of 721 Chinese participants completed the online survey. SPSS was used to perform hierarchical multiple regressions. The results showed that attitude, perceived behavioral control, moral norm, and subjective norm were all positively related to online donation intention. Moral norm was found to be a stronger predictor than subjective norm, raising the amount of explained variance of the original TPB model. Trust in charity organizations was found to positively predict donation intention while trust in technology was not. The results also revealed that past donation behavior moderated the effect of trust in charity organizations on donation intention. This study not only adds to the body of knowledge on charitable donation in the online context by incorporating two trust-related constructs into the extended TPB model, but also highlights the different roles moral and subjective norms play in predicting people’s prosocial behavior in the context of Chinese culture.
This article is a first step in examining reward-based crowdfunding in tourism as a socially responsible investment where individuals collaborate with projects that contribute to the development of their communities in economic, environmental, and/or sociocultural terms. Thus, the present study develops a model where social consciousness and perceived risk are postulated to influence individuals’ attitudes toward and intentions to participate in a project of crowdfunding. Based on a simulated crowdfunding project of “enotourism” that contributes to the development of a region in Spain, results reflect that the main drivers of individuals’ overall attitude toward crowdfunding are social consciousness and platform risk. Additionally, individuals’ intentions to fund the tourism project are influenced by their specific attitude toward the project and their overall attitude toward crowdfunding.
Different types of crowdfunding backers adopt various social and economic roles, beyond just financial support. Yet the most appropriate message strategy for attracting these different types of backers remains unclear. To fill this gap, using insights into advertising appeals and the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), we propose a conceptual framework reflecting how the emphasis of the appeals in a crowdfunding message might influence support decisions by two types of backers: consumers and investors. Objective data from a crowdfunding website reveal that appeals that emphasize information (emotion) exert more positive persuasive effects on consumer (investment) backers than on investment (consumer) backers. When devising the appeal emphasis, entrepreneurs thus must make a trade-off while also considering contingent factors such as decision control, social orientation, and reward tangibility. The practical implications of these findings suggest that entrepreneurs should activate backers’ information processing routes differentially, using distinct appeal emphases, rather than relying on an undifferentiated message strategy.
Purpose
Crowdfunding has become a popular and achievable means of funding projects worldwide. The purpose of this study is to determine which personal and social traits can increase individuals’ intention to participate in crowdfunding.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines innovativeness, attitudes toward helping others and interpersonal connectivity as determinants of consumers’ intention to participate in crowdfunding. Social identification with the crowdfunding community is proposed as a mediator in the model.
Findings
The results show that both social identification with the crowdfunding community and innovativeness have a positive effect on intention to participate. In addition, attitudes toward helping others and interpersonal connectivity indirectly affect intention to participate in crowdfunding through social identification with the crowdfunding community.
Research limitations/implications
This study analyzes a general audience of potential crowdfunders; therefore, the results identify just the indications for potential intentions to participate in crowdfunding activities.
Practical implications
Companies or fund-seekers currently using or expecting to use crowdfunding have to develop strategies focused on promoting social identification with the crowdfunding community. More effort should be devoted for developing consumers’ social relationships and ties within the crowdfunding community.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by clarifying the characteristics that potential crowdfunders should have to be more prone to participate in these types of projects.
The purpose of this paper is to test an expanded model of charitable giving and the intention to donate based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The novelty of this research resides in disaggregating the overall attitude a donor may hold into three different attitude constructs: attitude toward a charity, attitude toward helping, and attitude toward donation. An online survey was conducted of 202 potential Canadian charitable donors. By using a hierarchical multiple regression, results show that overall, the extended TPB model proposed in this study is significantly better than those found in the extant research in predicting the intention to donate. The strongest influences on the intention to donate were past behaviour, moral norms, and perceived behavioural control. Subjective norms and attitude toward charitable organisation were found to be non-significant predictors. Managerial implications are also presented at the end of the paper.
This paper presents a first-ever empirical examination of the effectiveness of signals that entrepreneurs use to induce (small) investors to commit financial resources in an equity crowdfunding context. We examine the impact of venture quality (human capital, social (alliance) capital, and intellectual capital) and uncertainty on fundraising success. Our data highlight that retaining equity and providing more detailed information about risks can be interpreted as effective signals and can therefore strongly impact the probability of funding success. Social capital and intellectual capital, by contrast, have little or no impact on funding success. We discuss the implications of our results for theory, future research and practice.
Through a survey of organizational stakeholders (N = 660), this study contributes to the understanding of nonprofit public relations in three key areas. First, a new five-factor scale to measure perceptions of the relationship cultivation strategies of stewardship was tested. Second, group differences between organization stakeholder types were explored. Third, a new working model that extends previous organization-public relationship (OPR) models to include variables of loyalty and behavioral intentions was advanced. Findings revealed theoretical, measurement, and practical applications.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to test the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model to investigate money donation intentions and behaviour. Furthermore, the applicability of an extended TPB model is tested for the first time in a collectivist culture.
Design/methodology/approach
– The data have been collected from 221 people living in the city of Kuala Lampur through a questionnaire based on extended TPB model. The data have been analysed through employing structural equation modelling (SEM) procedures to extract meaningful conclusions.
Findings
– The results depict an excellent fit to the extended TPB model. The past behaviour, injunctive norms, and intentions to donate positively contribute towards actual behaviour to donate money. Attitude, self-reported behaviour, descriptive norms, and moral norms do not significantly contribute to intentions to donate money.
Practical implications
– Managers of charitable organisations are struggling to attract customers who can actively donate money in response to various fundraising campaigns. This study will provide some useful strategies to help managers in attracting and retaining customers for life.
Originality/value
– Research studies performed to investigate money donation intentions and behaviour are scarce where current research fills this knowledge gap by presenting a developing country perspective. In addition to that, extended TPB model to investigate money donation intentions and behaviour has never been refuted through SEM procedures.
Research dealing with various aspects of* the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985,
1987) is reviewed, and some unresolved issues are discussed. In broad terms, the theory is
found to be well supported by empirical evidence. Intentions to perform behaviors of different
kinds can be predicted with high accuracy from attitudes toward the behavior, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control; and these intentions, together with perceptions of
behavioral control, account for considerable variance in actual behavior. Attitudes, subjective
norms, and perceived behavioral control are shown to be related to appropriate sets of salient
behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior, but the exact nature of these
relations is still uncertain. Expectancy value formulations are found to be only partly
successful in dealing with these relations. Optimal rescaling of expectancy and value
measures is offered as a means of dealing with measurement limitations. Finally, inclusion of
past behavior in the prediction equation is shown to provide a means of testing the theory*s
sufficiency, another issue that remains unresolved. The limited available evidence concerning
this question shows that the theory is predicting behavior quite well in comparison to the
ceiling imposed by behavioral reliability.
Crowdfunded journalism is a new model for funding journalism in which reporters solicit micropayments from readers to finance their reporting. In the present study, we seek to identify the major motivations behind readers' donations to a pioneering crowdfunded journalism website, Spot.Us. Under the theoretical framework of collective action, we explore a total of 9 motivations: altruism, fun, belief in freedom of content, social, community, self-esteem, understanding, image, and family and friends. Combining self-reported survey data (N = 344) with behavioral data on readers' complete donation records obtained from the Spot.Us server, we found that belief in freedom of content, altruism, and contributing to one's community were self-reported to be highly valued by donors, but fun and family and friends motivations were the only positive predictors for actual donation levels. We discuss the implications of these findings on the sustainability of crowdfunding as a business model for news.
The purpose of the study was to classify donors who make large donations and those who make small donations to athletics programmes. In particular, the study investigated the degree to which involvement with the athletics programme, income and donor type discriminate individuals who make large donations from those who make small donations in an effort to predict donation level of prospect donors. The hypothesis that the three variables (involvement with the athletics programme, income and donor type) would classify athletics donors of small donations from athletics donors of larger donations was confirmed. The findings of the study provide theoretical and practical implications in predicting donation size, determining donor cultivation strategies and increasing fundraising effectiveness.
Online donation platforms, albeit a recent phenomenon, are becoming more important for human
service nonprofits, allowing them to reach a broader target population of donors at relatively little cost.
In developing countries such as India, internet use is flourishing, and this has allowed fund-raisers to
reach a population hitherto difficult to reach. A cross-sectional research design was utilized to survey
donors of one online donation programin India (n = 479). This researchwas exploratory, investigating
the factors that influence people’s willingness to donate online, including the socio-demographic
characteristics of donors. Results show that gender, perception of the organization, and influence from
others are variables that influence the likelihood of donating online. Further research and implications
for human service nonprofits seeking to undertake online charitable campaigns are discussed.
Because nonprofit managers often face challenges in deciding how to best incorporate volunteers in working toward the organization's mission, it is important to understand how volunteers view their involvement with organizations. This study provides nonprofit managers with a short survey instrument they can use to help understand the nonprofit-volunteer relationship with volunteers by focusing on four dimensions: trust, satisfaction, commitment, and power balance. These four relationship outcomes are derived from public relations scholarship on the organization-public relationship. This study found that although volunteers all evaluated the relationships with organizations positively, there were significant differences when looking at the amount of time volunteers gave to organizations. This study also offers suggestions on how relationships can be improved with volunteers based on their evaluation of the relationship. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2005), more than 65 million Americans volunteer their time at nonprofit organizations annually. According to Allen (2006), organizations have an endless supply of volunteers when they are able to identify and motivate them to give their time and energy for worthwhile causes. Once recruited, the organization must focus on managing volunteers in a manner that meets the needs of both groups—the volunteers and the organization. Volunteer coordinators have to do a significant amount of work to retain volunteers. Researchers studying the nonprofit sector have made significant progress in identifying strategies that organizations can implement to increase volunteer retention.
This experimental study assessed the effectiveness of fundraising messages. Based on recent findings regarding the effects of message framing and evidence, effective fundraising messages should combine abstract, statistical information with a negative message frame and anecdotal evidence with a positive message frame. In addition, building on research into social dilemmas, it was hypothesized that information about charity goal attainment (e.g., the contributions of others) should increase donation intentions. The hypotheses were tested in a 2 (goal attainment: yes/no) x 2 (framing. positive/negative) x 2 (evidence: statistical/anecdotal) factorial design. Abstract information was more effective when combined with a negatively framed message, whereas anecdotal information was more effective when combined with a positive frame. In addition, donation intentions were higher for messages that addressed charity goal attainment issues.
Purpose
Following the planned behaviour theory, the aim of the paper is to analyse the role played by brand attachment, brand characteristics and congruence in enhancing brand attitude while leading to revisit intentions and word-of-mouth (WOM) in the restaurant sector.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on the quantitative method and considered 464 questionnaires fulfilled by customers of restaurants. The data were explored employing the partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
This study expands the literature about WOM and revisit intentions. The paper states that brand attitude positively influenced revisit intentions and WOM. Besides, findings highlighted that analysed concepts were positively correlated and that they played an important role in impacting revisit intentions and WOM, apart from one factor: social self-congruity, which was not significantly related to brand attitude.
Practical implications
The results of this paper show practitioners how to develop suitable strategies that set the bases for developing customer loyalty and repeat business. By putting into practice these suggestions in the restaurant sector, brands can easily build up their attitude and boost a positive WOM and the intention to revisit.
Originality/value
The study offers a conceptual framework to explore the significance of several factors, including revisit intentions and WOM. In practice, taking into account the proposed framework, it is suggested that restaurant managers should assess these two items using several factors including congruence, brand characteristics and brand attachment.
A national survey (N = 1275) explored how individuals' anger and efficacy predict attitudes toward political and social activism, related communication behaviors, and financial support behaviors. Findings revealed partial support for the Anger Activism Model, which was tested in this unique context. Efficacy emerged as a stronger predictor compared to anger, and path analysis suggests that while anger directly predicts attitudes and communication behaviors, it also partially predicts efficacy.
Although reward-based crowdfunding projects have experienced high growth in recent years, it is necessary to emphasize that not all the campaigns have success. Under these circumstances, this paper studies the influence of two potential funders' motivations (i.e., project attachment and business viability) on their behavioral intentions (i.e., the intention to fund a crowdfunding project, and the intention to spread positive physical and electronic word-of-mouth about it). It also explores how the effect of these motivations is moderated by two campaign characteristics: the percentage of target capital pledged and the time remaining until the funding deadline. With this aim, this paper simulates a crowdfunding project and collects 311 survey responses about it. Subsequently, a PLS-SEM approach is applied to test the model proposed. Findings demonstrate that potential funders’ intentions are mainly influenced by their attachment to the project. For its part, the business viability, as perceived by potential funders, plays a secondary role mainly influencing their word-of-mouth intentions. Finally, the campaign characteristics moderate the effect of attachment and viability on electronic word-of-mouth intentions.
This study examines how consumers' corporate social responsibility (CSR)‐related activities in social media affect their responses to brands. We defined consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media as the extent to which consumers use social media to engage in CSR communication by companies. An online survey was conducted to examine social media users in China, the largest consumer market in today's global economies. This study developed a theoretical model and empirically tested the relationships between consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media, identification with the brand, and three consumer behavior outcomes: electronic word‐of‐mouth (eWOM) intention, brand attitude, and purchase intention. The results suggested that consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media significantly impacted eWOM intention and purchase intention through enhancing identification with the brand and positive brand attitude. This study provides important insights on consumer behavior and CSR by investigating social media, an important and emerging marketing platform. Moreover, this study fills in the research gap about the association between consumers' CSR‐related activities in social media and their responses to brands. Theoretical and managerial implications for CSR strategies in social media are discussed.
This research examines the first-person effect (FPE) of anti-panhandling public service announcement (PSA) messages on promotional behaviors and donation intentions. A survey was administered to 660 participants recruited from Mechanical Turk’s Master Workers. As predicted, respondents rated a greater impact of the messages on all referent others than on themselves. However, as the message desirability of the anti-panhandling PSAs increases, the first-person perception (FPP) was found to become larger. On the behavioral component of FPE, the current study also adds empirical evidence that FPP of PSAs increases the audience’s engagements in donation behaviors as well as promotional behaviors. The effect of FPP on promotional behaviors was stronger than the effect on donation behaviors. Lastly, the effect of message desirability on promotional behaviors was partially mediated through the FPP.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to apply the self-determination theory (SDT) to propose a research model that incorporates the SDT framework and contextual variables as determinants and self-identity and social identity as mediating constructs to predict individuals’ intentions toward donation crowdfunding in China.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling is used to analyze the data collected from China.
Findings
The results indicate that the self-identity and social identity collectively or separately mediate the effect exerted by the sense of self-worth, face concern, moral obligation, perceived donor effectiveness, social interaction and referent network size on donation intentions. However, there is no evidence supporting the hypothesis connecting moral obligation with self-identity.
Practical implications
The study provides suggestions for service providers on how to improve and perfect the functions, and it also provides insights for donation crowdfunding fundraisers on how to increase the success rate.
Originality/value
The conclusions of this study provide academics with a more thorough understanding of the driving forces of individual behavior intention toward donation crowdfunding in China. This study further expands the SDT and identity theory in the context of donation crowdfunding, which improves their robustness in explaining behavioral intention. These theories may be an important part of future information system research.
Charity donation is an important prosocial behaviour that is often generated/strengthened by emotional stimuli from advertising. A similar strategy is often used to trigger the purchase of cause‐related products. The two activities represent direct and indirect methods of financial support and are important topics for researchers and practitioners. Charity donation and purchase of cause‐related products are typically investigated on the basis of different theoretical backgrounds; therefore, they are almost never directly compared with each other. However, the two share some similarities from the perspectives of the donor/buyer and the donation recipient. This article aims to analyse how direct and indirect donation behaviours are influenced by the same emotional stimulus (existential guilt generated by a visual advertisement). In parallel, this article examines the possible moderation effect of similar past behaviours. The study is performed by surveying 374 respondents in Lithuania. Results confirmed that the same emotion (existential guilt) had a direct positive impact on the intention towards both studied behaviours. However, the moderation effect of experience was observed only in the relationship between existential guilt and the intention to donate to charity, signalling the difference in its influence on the two behaviours. These findings enrich the knowledge of the similarities and differences between direct (donating to charity) and indirect (purchasing cause‐related products) donation behaviours. Additionally, it fills in the knowledge gap regarding the relation between the intentions of prosocial behaviours and existential guilt as an advertising appeal.
Public relations scholars have called for a shift from organization-centred approaches and practices to community, - or collective-based ones. With the Internet, the latter have become more frequent although under-researched or not well understood. This article addresses those gaps by researching a community-based campaign in New Zealand and by underpinning the research with collective action theory. Methodologically, it combines netnography, thematic analysis, and interviews with major players, to analyze a civic crowdfunding campaign. It provides an account of how two amateur activists not only initiated and managed this campaign, but also raised US2.27) within three weeks to buy a private beach and gift it back to the New Zealand public. The article seeks to add to both PR scholarship and practice. It adds to the former by analysing the campaign and identifying success factors for civic crowdfunding campaigns more generally; and to the latter by accounting for a different kind of activist and community-based PR that goes beyond organization-centred approaches to offer gratifying community-centered work that improves the reputation of PR for contributing to the common good.
Our purpose in this study was to validate the role of consumers’ perceived trust and satisfaction in the internal mechanism of the effect of nonprofit organizations’ social media strategies on consumers’ donation intention and electronic word-of-mouth. We developed an online survey that was completed by 242 followers of the One Foundation nonprofit organization on social media. Responses were analyzed with a structural equation model. The results showed that both dissemination and interactivity had a significantly positive effect on consumers’ perceived trust and satisfaction, which subsequently influenced their donation intention, and electronic word-of-mouth. Disclosure had a positive effect only on trust. Practical implications for managers of nonprofit organizations are discussed.
We investigated the effect of recognition for supporting a cause on the social networking site Facebook, and measured cause involvement and self-efficacy as moderators in intention to donate and volunteer. We used a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design, and obtained 262 responses from an online survey. Results indicated that social recognition, high involvement, and high self-efficacy resulted in more positive behavioral responses. In addition, social recognition served as a greater motivator to donate and volunteer for individuals with low cause involvement than it did for those with high involvement. Results further suggested that the positive effect of social recognition was amplified for individuals with high self-efficacy compared with those with low self-efficacy. Practical implications for the marketing of nonprofit organizations using social media are discussed. © 2016 Scientific Journal Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.
As technological advancements continue to evolve, consumer use and purchase behavior also change in response to the emergence of new tools such as social media. Given that more marketers have shifted their focus toward engaging customers in the development of their marketing mix via social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, finding important factors that drive consumer use and purchase behavior in this environment is of practical and academic importance. Use behavior contributes to fundamental user base, whereas purchase behavior generates firm revenue. For firms, finding a common factor that influences both behaviors would help increase marketing effectiveness. Based on a literature review, this study identifies social identity as the common factor in the social media context. Furthermore, existing research suggests that social identity has multiple dimensions including cognitive, affective, and evaluative. However, whether these three dimensions exert the same influences on these two important behaviors is not clear yet. The present study attempts to fill this research gap and examine the various effects of cognitive, affective, and evaluative dimensions on use and purchase behaviors. The result shows that these three dimensions have various effects on focal behaviors. The findings indicate that affective dimension has an effect on use behavior, while the cognitive and evaluative dimensions have an influence on purchase behavior. Evaluative identity has a stronger influence than its cognitive counterpart. The three dimensions are distinct and non-substitutable by other parts. Implications are elaborated in the discussion section.
As a relatively new behavior, donation to content creators in social media has become very popular in the last few years. Different from traditional donation to nonprofit organization or victims, donation to content creators in social media has received little attention from academic researchers. On the basis of the socio-technical systems framework and attachment theory, this study develops a model to investigate the effects of social and technological factors on users’ donation behavior. Our results indicate that donation intention is determined by the emotional attachment to the content creator and functional dependence on social media, which are influenced by both social factors (identification, interaction, and information value) and technical factors (sociability and personalization).
Building on previous research that examined role identity in relation to volunteering, this study explored the impact of identity and personality for three giving behaviors: donating money, volunteering time, and donating blood. This study examined the contribution of general identity as a helpful person, role identity specific to each behavior, and personality traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness within the decision-making framework of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Participants (N = 203) completed a questionnaire measuring role identity (general and behavior specific), conscientiousness and agreeableness, and the TPB constructs of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention to donate. Three months later, participants reported whether they had engaged in each behavior. The results demonstrated that identity as a donor (i.e., specifically of money, time, or as a blood donor) emerged as more important in determining people’s giving actions than general role identity as a helpful person or global personality characteristics.
Traditional medical fundraising charities have been relying on third-party watchdogs and carefully crafting their reputation over time to signal their credibility to potential donors. As medical fundraising campaigns migrate to online platforms in the form of crowdfunding, potential donors can no longer rely on the organization's traditional methods for achieving credibility. Individual fundraisers must establish credibility on their own. Potential donors, therefore, seek new factors to assess the credibility of crowdfunding campaigns. In this paper, we investigate current practices in assessing the credibility of online medical crowdfunding campaigns. We report results from a mixed-methods study that analyzed data from social media and semi-structured interviews. We discovered eleven factors associated with the perceived credibility of medical crowdfunding. Of these, three communicative/emotional factors were unique to medical crowdfunding. We also found a distinctive validation practice, the collective endorsement. Close-connections' online presence and external online communities come together to form this collective endorsement in online medical fundraising campaigns. We conclude by describing how fundraisers can leverage collective endorsements to improve their campaigns' perceived credibility.
With an empirical study in two nonprofit industries (a money-collecting and blood-collecting organization), the authors investigate how organizational identification and identity salience together function in relation to satisfaction, loyalty, and behavior. They develop and test a model that best represents relationships featuring donor-nonprofit identification and donor identity salience in existing satisfaction-loyalty studies. Overall, the study empirically confirms that donor-nonprofit identification and donor identity salience are distinct constructs and that both have direct positive effects on loyalty, but not that much on donations. Within the money donation context, both identification constructs have stronger total effects on donor loyalty than donor satisfaction, whereas in the blood donation context, donor satisfaction has a stronger effect on loyalty. In testing the causal direction between donor-nonprofit identification and donor satisfaction, the authors also find that the path should be conceptualized from satisfaction to identification. The study contributes to the theory of organizational identification and identity salience by highlighting the advantages of taking a combined theoretical approach. Finally, the study suggests several means to implement donor identification management, including group activities, development of online communities, donor events, and more long-term-oriented tactics, all of which treat the donor as a cocreator of value.
Most people operate on the assumption that when a person states that he believes or feels a particular way about something he will behave in a manner consistent with his statements. If this is so, why do researchers report such a poor relationship between attitude and behavior? Personal, situational, and methodological factors contributing to this discrepancy are examined.
The rapid rise of crowdfunding in the past five years, most prominently among US-based platforms such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, has begun to attract the attention of a wide range of scholars, policymakers and practitioners. This paper considers civic crowdfunding – the use of crowdfunding for projects that produce community or quasipublic assets – and argues that its emergence demands a fresh set of questions and approaches. The work draws on critical case studies constructed through fieldwork in the United States, the UK and Brazil, and a discourse analysis of civic crowdfunding projects collected from platforms by the author. It offers three provocations to scholars and practitioners considering the practice, questioning the extent to which civic crowdfunding is participatory, the extent to which it addresses or contributes to social inequality, and the extent to which it augments or weakens the role of public institutions. In doing so, it finds that civic crowdfunding is capable of vastly divergent outcomes, and argues that the extent to which civic crowdfunding produces outcomes that are beneficial, rather than harmful to the public sphere, will be determined by the extent to which the full range of stakeholders in civic life participate in the practice.
An extended theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used to predict young people's intentions to donate money to charities in the future. Students (N = 210; 18–24 years) completed a questionnaire assessing their attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control (PBC), moral obligation, past behavior, and intentions toward donating money. Regression analyses revealed that the extended TPB explained 61% of the variance in intentions to donate money. Attitude, PBC, moral norm, and past behavior predicted intentions, representing future targets for charitable‐giving interventions.
Two main reasons why people donate to charity are that they have been asked and asked by someone they care about. One would therefore expect that charitable organizations could benefit from peer-to-peer fundraising if they were able to persuade donors to do so for them. However, little is known on the costs and benefits of asking donors to fundraise. We investigate this by implementing a field experiment embedded in an online giving organization’s web page. In our experiment, donors who have completed an online transaction were randomly asked to share having donated by posting on their Facebook (FB) wall or by sending a private message to a friend on FB. To further explore the impact of incentives on the willingness to fundraise, donors were also assigned to one of three treatments in which the organization added either 0, 1 or $5 in the donor's name in exchange for sharing the information. We have several findings: (1) Donors respond to incentives: larger add-on donations increase the willingness to post having made a donation. (2) Nuisance costs may be important: willingness to post is over two times higher among those already logged into FB. (3) The type of ask matters: willingness to post via one’s wall or via a private message is different. (4) There are benefits to incentivizing peer-to-peer fundraising in increased new donations.
Abstract Social networking sites (SNSs) provide a unique social venue to engage the young generation in philanthropy through their networking capabilities. An integrated model that incorporates social capital into the Theory of Reasoned Action is developed to explain volunteer behavior through social networks. As expected, volunteer behavior was predicted by volunteer intention, which was influenced by attitudes and subjective norms. In addition, social capital, an outcome of the extensive use of SNSs, was as an important driver of users' attitude and subjective norms toward volunteering via SNSs.
The research reported here is a test of the applicability of an identity theory model, developed with samples of blood donors, to two other forms of institutional helping: volunteering and charitable donation. The model fits all three forms of helping; perceived expectations, parental modeling, personal norms, past behaviov, and role- identity as a donor are significant predictors of intentions to donate. Role-identity is predicted from perceived expectations, modeling, personal norms, and past behavior. Past behavior is consistently influenced by perceived expectations and modeling. Although the fit of the model is very similar across forms of giving, the past volunteer- ing of time-the most "public" form of donation-appears to be affected more strong- ly by others' expectations than are gifts of blood or money. Past blood donation is affected more strongly by modeling from parents than is volunteering. Feelings of moral obligation have a stronger effect on role-identity as a blood donor than as a donor of time or money.
Fundraising scholarship has focused on the application of public relations theory to the process particularly in exploring the predictive power in applying relationship management theory to the non-profit organization–donor relationship. However, people often are impacted by catastrophic events and want to donate to relief efforts even though they may not be connected to the region. A survey of two American Red Cross chapters’ donors revealed that individuals who contributed to the December 2004 tsunami relief efforts were more likely to experience feelings of cognitive dissonance than non-donors, and their donations resulted in a consonance restoration. These results support an argument for non-profits, particularly those in crisis response, to have an active crisis communication plan in place that deals not only with responding to the event but also having a proactive plan established to publicize how to donate to relief efforts. Highlighting the consonance restoration, non-profits should also discuss the positive aspects of donating to their efforts, such as the work being done for the disaster victims.
This article explores the concept of relationships in the theory and practice of public relations. Even though the public relations function builds and maintains organizations' relationships with publics, we found few definitions of such relationships in public relations literature. We also found the same paucity of useful definitions in the literature of other fields in which the concept of relationships is central.
This article suggests that agreement on a paradigm focus for public relations scholarship would greatly enhance the probability of productive theory development. The author argues, influenced by Thomas Kuhn, that until those who call themselves public relations scholars come to agreement on the focus of public relations research and theory development, there may be much activity we call research in public relations, but there will not be much theory development.
This research tested a model that posits the linkages among perceptions of the organization–public relationships, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward an organization among members of a key public. Among the 6 relationship indexes proposed by Hon and J. E. Grunig (1999), perceptions of satisfaction and control mutuality were the best predictors of a positive attitude toward the organization. In this study we also found that positive attitude was a precursor to supportive behavioral intentions toward the organization.
This study presents one of the first examinations of the influence of antecedents of relationships on the organization–public relationship. Results from a pilot study of adolescent volunteers suggest that reason for volunteering with a nonprofit organization was a significant predictor of volunteers’ future intentions toward the organization. Two variables partially mediated the relationship between antecedents and future intended behavior, involvement and relationship quality. Findings suggest that while reasons for relationship initiation play a powerful role in the organization–public relationship, organizations can minimize the impact through relationship management.
Data from 574 participants were used to assess perceptions of message, site, and sponsor credibility across four genres of websites; to explore the extent and effects of verifying web-based information; and to measure the relative influence of sponsor familiarity and site attributes on perceived credibility.The results show that perceptions of credibility differed, such that news organization websites were rated highest and personal websites lowest, in terms of message, sponsor, and overall site credibility, with e-commerce and special interest sites rated between these, for the most part.The results also indicated that credibility assessments appear to be primarily due to website attributes (e.g. design features, depth of content, site complexity) rather than to familiarity with website sponsors. Finally, there was a negative relationship between self-reported and observed information verification behavior and a positive relationship between self-reported verification and internet/web experience.
The findings are used to inform the theoretical development of perceived web credibility.
A number of large UK charities have extended their product sales into areas not traditionally associated with non-profit organisations. Examines the connection between a person’s assessment of the quality and value for money of conventional charity goods (T-shirts or coffee mugs for example) and their evaluation of the likely merits of new and unfamiliar charity products (such as package holidays or household insurance). Emerges that the former variable exerted a strong and statistically significant impact on the latter, but that the form of the relationship was moderated by individual perceptions of the degree of similarity between the old and new products. “Similarity” was defined in terms of the skills and resources that consumers considered necessary in order to supply various items and the charity’s perceived capacity to employ these skills and abilities in ways which generate fresh products of the same calibre as existing goods.