High-Capacity Donors' Preferences for Charitable Giving
In: Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly: journal of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Band 50, Heft 6, S. 1262-1273
ISSN: 1552-7395
How can charities solicit high-capacity donors to provide the funds for matching grants and leadership gifts? In conjunction with Texas A&M University's fundraising organizations, we conducted a field experiment to study whether high-income donors respond to nonpersonal solicitations. We also designed the experiment to test the impact of allowing for directed giving on the giving behavior of high-income donors and their willingness to direct their donations toward overhead costs. High-income donors are not responsive to letters or emails, regardless of whether they have the option to direct giving; we cannot conclude, therefore, that giving behavior is different for those who could direct giving compared with those who could not. Our results highlight the difficulties of motivating some high-income donors, especially when only impersonal communication is used.
