Search

Jack and George Mangas were prominent citizens of Elwood, Indiana, for the greater part of the twentieth century, founding well-known and popular small businesses, including the Elwood Sweet Shop, Mangas [...]

Research on philanthropy has not sufficiently examined whether charitable giving to religious causes impinges on giving to secular causes. Examining three waves of national panel data, we find that the relationship between religious and secular giving is generally not of a zero-sum nature; families that increase their religious giving also increase their secular giving. We argue that this finding is best accounted for by a practice theory of social action which emphasizes how religious congregations foster skills and practices related to charitable giving. We also argue that denominational variation in the influence of religious giving is best accounted for by the financial structuring of the denomination. We conclude with the implications for studies of religious causal influence more generally., While recent research has established a positive relationship between religiosity and financial giving (Bekkers and Weipking 2007; Brooks 2006; Wilhelm, Rooney and Tempel 2007), it is not clear whether money [...]

The effectiveness of a matching grant on charitable giving to nonprofit organizations is investigated. Both the revenue per solicitation and the response rate increase with the introduction of a match offer.

Using a 1995 national survey of 2,870 Chinese private entrepreneurs, this article examines collaboration between private business and government in times of economic transition. Much as in the late 18th century situation in France as described by Tocqueville, special moments occur when a newly emerging business class offers monetary payments for charity and for honorary offices. In exchange, the government, desperate for new sources of revenue, provides social recognition and political access. The data suggest that into at least the 1990s Chinese private entrepreneurs donated generously to government welfare projects, and in exchange gained political access and social status via appointment to political councils., There can be few, if any, parallels for this intense desire of the middleclass Frenchman to cut an official figure, no sooner did he find himself in possession of a [...]

Previous studies by Holmes, Miller, and Lerner (2002) support the norm of self-interest and exchange fiction hypotheses. Together these arguments state that people want to act on compassionate feelings (e.g., by donating to charities) but are reluctant to do so if they cannot justify their behavior as being in line with their own self-interest. Thus a person will be more likely to contribute to a charity when he or she receives a product in exchange for the contribution. This exchange fiction gives the person egoistic cover for the compassionate act. In this paper we critically evaluate the evidence for this line of reasoning and offer an alternative explanation for that evidence based on cognitive dissonance theory. We report the results of a new field experiment designed to tease apart the exchange fiction argument and the alternative approach. Results of the study support our application of dissonance theory over the exchange fiction account.

The authors find that contributions to green energy programs are motivated both by program goals and by political attitudes.

Byline: Catherine C. Eckel (1), Philip J. Grossman (2) Keywords: experimental methodology; dictator game; charitable giving Abstract: We report the results of experiments that test for behavioral differences between volunteer subjects recruited in the usual way and pseudo-volunteer subjects in experiments conducted during class time. In a series of dictator games, we find that psuedo-volunteers are more generous on average than their volunteer counterparts, and that non-monetary factors such as religious or altruistic preferences have a greater effect on the giving behavior of pseudo-volunteers. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Economics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA (2) Department of Economics, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, 56301-4498, USA Article History: Registration Date: 15/10/2004

The charitable behavior of corporations was investigated to prove or disprove the perception that companies only donate to charities if there is some form of return from the money they have given. Corporate philanthropy is not limited to monetary gifts, however. Other firms provide goods, services or assistance in soliciting donations. The study showed that companies donated to charity for altruistic reasons, which is consistent with the results of earlier studies done by C.J. Cowton in 1987 and B. Shaw and F.R. Post in 1993.

Some views on donation mechanisms that were presented by P.A. Champ, R.C. Bishop, T.C. Brown and D.W. McCollum in their article entitled 'Using donation mechanisms to value non-use benefits from public goods' are criticized. Champ and his co-authors' conclusion on actual donations as a theoretical lower bound on Hicksian values is inaccurate because it was found that donations can either be over, equal or below Hicksian values. This is dependent on the strength of warm glow and method of provision.

Drawing a framework from stakeholder theory, this study uses 1994 data drawn form 100 United Kingdom listed companies to test empirically whether the level of discretionary donations made by companies to charitable, social and political causes is related to four company-specific factors, namely leverage, company size, profitability and ownership structure. Consistent with our hypotheses, the results indicate that the decision to contribute funds to charities and other bodies is positively related to company size and profitability and negatively related to leverage. However, the study provides no support for the view that there is a link between discretionary donations and a company's ownership structure. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This article focuses on the bundling of products with promised contributions to charity. Two lab experiments and one field study are conducted that compare the effectiveness of promised donations to charity in promoting 'practical necessities' (e.g., a box of laundry detergent) to their effectiveness in promoting 'frivolous luxuries' (e.g., a hot fudge sundae). The results suggest that charity incentives are more effective in promoting frivolous products than in promoting practical products. This research extends prior work on the effects of bundling complementary positive outcomes into the domain of affect-based complementarity with product-charity bundles. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This paper explores the determinants of religious giving through simulations, economic theory, and survey data. Skewness, a distinctive yet poorly understood feature of religious giving, proves to be an inevitable consequence of the weak correlation between absolute levels of income and percentage rates of giving. The weak correlation can be derived, in turn, from a formal, rational choice model of religious participation. Data from the General Social Surveys show that this model also accounts for many other observed patterns in giving and church attendance.

Byline: Albert A. Okunade (1), Robert L. Berl (2) Abstract: This study investigated the propensity of Business School alumni to donate cash to the alma mater. A logit regression model was fitted to the survey response data from the 1955/56--1990/91 alumni of a large, Carnegie-classified, Doctoral University I public higher educational institution. The marginal probability of giving was found to be significantly related to factors such as time since graduation, major area of degree, willingness to recommend the university to others, household attributes and family ties to the alma mater, the number of other voluntary donors known, and the availability of matching gift accounts where alumni are employed. The logit estimates can be used to predict the likelihood of giving and for selecting fund-raising prospects more efficiently. Potentially rich future research directions are explored. Author Affiliation: (1) Economics Department, The University of Memphis, Rm. 400BB (FCBE), Memphis, TN, 38152 (2) Department of Marketing, The University of Memphis, Rm. 302BB (FCBE), Memphis, TN, 38152 Article History: Registration Date: 22/10/2004

Comparison of a joint public and private operation to provide public goods with the standard model of public good provision reveals certain similarities. However, theoretical analysis asserts the greater practicability of the joint production model. This finding is consistent with previous empirical findings.

Building on behavioral decision research, this article provides guidelines to charitable marketing managers regarding the effect of charitable direct marketing appeals on donor decision judgments. Several charitable direct mail appeals (factors) were empirically tested simultaneously in a factorial experimental design involving 18,144 potential donors to determine how donor decision strategies influenced choice judgments about whether to give and estimation judgments about how much to give. The results indicate that suggested anchors and framing influence response rate (choice) but not size of gift. Reference information (factual/statistical and narrative/experiential) influences size of gift (estimation) but not response rate. Implications for charitable marketing managers are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

I. INTRODUCTION The dichotomous choice, or closed-ended, format for soliciting estimates of willingness to pay (WTP) has gained many adherents since it was first used in contingent valuation (CV) by [...]

Introduction There has been much debate on the relevance of the marketing concept to nonprofit organizations since the late 1960s. The origins of this debate can be traced to the [...]