Developing, exploring, and validating a typology of private philanthropic decision making

Previous research on charitable giving has devoted little attention to the fundamental question of how consumers actually respond to charitable donati on requests via direct mail. Specifically, researchers have relied on the u ntested assumption that consumers engage in fairly extensive evaluations of requests. The present research challenges this assumption. By means of a s imple scenario-technique, cognitive and behavioural responses to donation r equests were first elicited from a sample of 90 consumers. A qualitative co nstant comparative analysis of responses resulted in the discovery of three different donor categories with different styles of decision-making: analy sts (ANA), relationists (REL) and internalists (INT). ANA were characterise d by high involvement and thorough evaluations of both the Organisation beh ind a request and the specific cause promoted. REL were loyal to specific o rganisations and seldom attended to other information than the organisation behind the request. Interestingly, consumers in the final category, INT, n either evaluated the Organisation nor the cause promoted. For these consume rs, recognition of the requesting Organisation was usually enough to trigge r a positive response. In a follow-up survey including responses from more than 400 consumers, the typology of response styles was further explored an d validated. In line with predictions from study 1, significant differences were observed in the ways ANA, REL and INT perceive, evaluate and give mon ey to charitable organisations. The findings offer important implications f or consumer psychology, public policy and charity marketing. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.