Donor Retention: What Do We Know & What Can We Do About It?

Donor retention is key to a sustainable base of individual giving. What drives customers to stay, and what affects their behavior? This paper outlines the actions nonprofits can take to improve donor loyalty

Determinants of U. S. Donor Behavior: The Case of Bequests

The authors assembled a panel of five US nonprofits currently engaged in the solicitation of legacy gifts. Working with these five partners we designed a quantitative research study with the following objectives, namely to:a) Identify factors that prompt an individual to offer a bequest.b) Identify the environmental triggers that might prompt an individual to offer a bequest (e.g. prompting by a professional, prompting by a charity, loss of a loved one etc.)c) Identify the best prospects for legacy/bequest 'asks'.d) Identify how various categories of 'bequest ask' communications are perceived by donors.e) Identify the relationship between stated intentions to pledge and actual bequests made. It is interesting to note that the direct marketing agencies working with lower value bequests in the UK estimate that over 80% of pledgers are lying and fail to follow through on their promise. In our own academic study conducted in the UK, the figure was found to be much smaller. We could identify no related studies on this topic to date in the US

Growing Philanthropy in the United States: A Report on the June 2011 Washington, D.C. Growing Philanthropy Summit

This paper summarizes the Summit's conclusions and recommendations in four categories: enhancing the quality of donor relationships; developing public trust and confidence in the sector; identifying new audiences, channels, and forms of giving with a strong potential for growth; and improving the quality of fundraising training and development. It addresses these issues in light of research showing that individual giving has remained flat despite advances in fundraising practices and the emergence of new digital channels. With bibliographical references

Service blueprinting in the nonprofit sector : a case study

This paper examines the implications for nonprofits of managing donation exchanges using customer relationships management and service blueprinting. Based on a UK case study it identifies that there are a range of issues that might make managing donation services exchanges more complex than occurs in the for profit setting.<br /

Social Norms and Fundraising: The Trade-Off Between Enhanced Donations and Donor Identity Esteem

peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=wnon2

Loyalty Meets Philanthropic Psychology: A New Approach to Supporter Retention

In this new report, we discuss a large scale survey we undertook with donors of two large national non-profits, measuring satisfaction, commitment and trust together with a range of variables drawn from philanthropic psychology and future giving intentions.Recording data a year later, we found that what predicts giving intentions is broadly NOT what predicts actual behaviour. Rather, what appears to drive subsequent behaviour is how giving leaves people feeling

Dealing with social desirability bias: An application to charitable giving

Purpose: This paper aims to address the issue of survey distortion caused by one of the most common and pervasive sources of bias, namely social desirability bias (SDB). Despite 50 years of research, there are still many unanswered questions about its conceptualisation and operationalisation. The authors argue that traditional measures of SDB are inadequate and that the context in which the research is being conducted should be reflected in the measures employed. Hence, the authors develop and validate a multi-dimensional scale that may be used to measure the degree of SDB present in responses to giving surveys. Design/methodology/approach: Following initial scale development procedures a convenience sample of 820 donors to a national charity was employed to refine the resultant scale items. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability tests were conducted to establish the dimensionality of the new scale and its reliability. Using a separate sample of 1,500 active donors, the scale was then subject to confirmatory procedures to test its predictive validity. Findings: The findings support the assertion that SDB is a multi-dimensional construct consisting of six dimensions. However, in the context of postal surveys it is found that self-deception and the degree of intrinsic benefit accruing to a donor are the primary determinants of the level of SDB an individual will exhibit. The authors also highlight the significance of the SDB issue since in the survey reported here, 65 per cent of respondents were found to over-report their giving. Originality/value: This is one of the first published studies that has been able to explore the predictive validity of a SDB scale. The work has expanded our understanding of the determinants of SDB and provided an instrument that may now be employed to reduce a significant proportion of this error in giving surveys. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Letter to the editor - round table unites to tackle culture change in an effort to improve animal research reporting

A round table discussion was held during the LAVA-ESLAV-ECLAM conference on Reproducibility of Animal Studies on the 25th of September 2017 in Edinburgh. The aim of the round table was to discuss how to enhance the rate at which the quality of reporting animal research can be improved. This signed statement acknowledges the efforts that participant organizations have made towards improving the reporting of animal studies and confirms an ongoing commitment to drive further improvements, calling upon both academics and laboratory animal veterinarians to help make this cultural change