Fundraising Principles and Practice, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER FOURINDIVIDUAL GIVING BEHAVIOR

Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Describe the demographic characteristics of American donors.
2. Describe key motives for giving.
3. Understand and describe the processes underpinning individual giving.
4. Apply an understanding of these processes to the design of fundraising activities and communications.
5. Understand and describe the Sargeant and Woodliffe model of giving behavior.
6. Distinguish between content and process models of giving behavior.

Introduction

In this chapter we will provide an introduction to the topic of donor behavior. The focus here will be on individual giving by living individuals. Bequest giving and institutional giving (by foundations and corporations) will be the focus of later chapters. Here, we will draw on a wide variety of sources to provide an illustration of who currently gives to nonprofits and why. In Chapter 5, we will move on to look at giving in its social context and explore in greater detail how environmental factors can shape philanthropy. There, we will also introduce the emerging science of philanthropic psychology.

Who Gives?

In the United States there is to our knowledge no national survey that tracks the characteristics of individuals who donate money to nonprofits. What exists instead is a patchwork of studies reporting on different facets of philanthropy. The most comprehensive ...