A. Sargeant

Charitable Giving: Towards a Model of Donor Behaviour

The need for the development of a comprehensive model of giving behaviour has never been greater. In the UK, the proportion of households electing to support charity is continuing a twenty year decline. This factor, combined with the accompanying and sharp increase in the number of registered charities has contributed to the creation of an ever more hostile fundraising environment. If they are to survive, charities seeking funds from individual donors will have to refine both the quality and targeting of their fundraising campaigns. It is the purpose of this article to develop a comprehensive model of giving behaviour to assist them in this process. The article draws on literature from the fields of marketing, economics, clinical psychology, social psychology, anthropology and sociology. The implications of the resultant model for fundraising strategy are discussed and opportunities for further research delineated.

Donor Trust and Relationship Commitment in the U.K. Charity Sector: The Impact on Behavior

This article explores the relationship between trust, relationship commitment, and giving behavior. It operationalizes trust and commitment by developing measurement scales for each construct. The technique of structural equation modeling is used to determine whether trust directly affects giving behavior or whether its effects are mediated by commitment. It is concluded that commitment plays a mediating role, and implications for professional fundraising practice are discussed.

Modelling internal communications in the financial services sector

The increasingly competitive financial service environment has recently forced organizations to consider the role that their employees might play in the attainment of a genuinely sustainable source of competitive advantage. The role of internal communication has thus acquired particular significance as organizations strive to communicate customer needs, organizational values etc. to staff working at every level and, moreover, to encourage staff to maintain a two‐way dialogue with management. It is the purpose of this article to model this communications process, examining the nature of the process, the outcomes thereof and those variables that have the capacity to moderate outcomes, in the context of two UK Clearing Banks. A qualitative approach based on grounded theory has been adopted.

Building Donor Loyalty: The Antecedents and Role of Commitment in the Context of Charity Giving

ABSTRACT In both the United States and the United Kingdom donor attrition rates are an increasing cause for concern. Many organizations lose up to 60% of cash donors after their first donation. In this study we delineate the factors that drive donor commitment to a cause and subsequent loyalty. A series of nine focus groups were employed to derive study hypotheses that were then tested using the technique of structural equation modelling. We conclude the factors (1) perceived service quality, (2) shared beliefs, (3) perceived risk, (4) the existence of a personal link to the organization/cause, and (5) trust, drive commitment in this context of charity giving.

Business performance in the UK hotel sector - does it pay to be market oriented?

This article reports the findings ofa postal survey of 200 of the UKs largest hotel groups. The results clearly indicate that many organisations have yet to achieve a market orientation and that a focus on competitors is frequently absent. Thirty five per cent of hotels remain sales oriented, although no adverse effects on performance would yet appear to be evident. This study found no link between the degree o f market orientation attained and the performance o f the business as measured by profitability and turnover.

Market segmentation in the Indonesian banking sector: the relationship between demographics and desired customer benefits

The recent economic turmoil in Indonesia has hit the financial service sector hard. Consumer confidence in banks is low and institutions are having to work harder than ever to recruit and retain their customers. In this article the potential for banks to utilize benefit segmentation to assist them in this context is explored. It will be argued that for benefit segmentation to offer any real utility in this context, a link must be found between benefits and general observable characteristics, such as demographics. To ascertain whether such a link exists, a primary study of 1,000 individuals was conducted in the city of Bengkulu, Southwest Sumatra. As the results will show, while discrete bundles of benefits were identified, they would appear generally unrelated to consumer demographics.

Charity Brand Personality: The Relationship With Giving Behavior:

Charity brands have been found to assist income generation by enhancing donor understanding of an organization and what it stands for. Despite an increasing interest in this topic, few studies have addressed the dimensions of such brands and sought to explore the link (if any) with donor behavior. The authors report the results of a large-scale postal survey of donors to nine national nonprofits and conclude that traits associated with benevolence, progression, and conservatism are incapable of distinguishing between the studys participating brands. Traits associated with emotional engagement, service, voice, and tradition are capable of serving as the basis for differentiation and are also linked to facets of individual giving behavior.

Does perception matter?: an empirical analysis of donor behaviour

This article provides the first empirically based marketing model of the perceptions of givers and the resulting impact on donations. Within nonprofit marketing there is a considerable amount of extant research to support the view that both extrinsic and intrinsic variables can be used to separate givers and non-givers to charities. However, they are less useful in explaining how individuals select between the charitable alternatives and in understanding how people determine and apportion support. Perceptual factors offer more utility in this regard. Structural equations models are presented based on a survey of over 2,300 active and lapsed donors that link a series of perceptual determinants to four relevant charity performance measures: the total amount given to charity, the number of gifts given, the giving lifetime between the individual and the charity, and the amount given yearly. Marketing management implications are identified.

The strategic application of internal marketing ‐ an investigation of UK banking

It is the purpose of this article to explore the relevance of the concept of internal marketing to the financial service arena and the extent to which it may be possible to utilise internal marketing as a means of reducing the service gaps postulated by Parasuraman et al. The study is based on an analysis of 33 depth interviews with managers from two major UK clearing banks. In general, the research found no evidence that internal marketing as a concept is as yet fully understood by management, either at the junior, or more senior levels, within each organisation. There is at present little understanding of the needs of employees, and internal market research is noticeably absent. The results reveal a clear need for both institutions to adopt a more strategic perspective on their internal marketing activity. It will be argued that a failure to do so is likely to result in a widening of the service gaps and failure to compete effectively in a market increasingly driven by the quality of the service demanded.

Individual and contextual antecedents of donor trust in the voluntary sector

Extant research by the Henley Centre suggests that the level of public trust in the voluntary sector is low. In this study we explore the individual and contextual antecedents of trust, develop measurement scales therefore and explore their relationship with the trust construct. Four factors, attitude to philanthropy, organisational judgment, perceived role competence and delivered service quality were identified through the use of structural equation modelling as being antecedents of trust. The implications for nonprofit management in relation to building trust are discussed.