Essay On Charity Giving

In the previous chapter, underlying theories of motivation and the role of social pressure are introduced. A logical next step is to discuss charitable giving. This chapter studies different motives of individuals to donate to charity and ways in which charity organisations raise funds. The most traditional fundraising techniques used by charities are through media such as direct mail, telemarketing, face-to-face canvassing, door-to-door distribution, press advertising, radio advertising and direct response television (Sargeant, 1999). Next to this, modern-day technology has led to an increase in the number of charity fundraising methods. The internet has created the opportunity for non-profit Charity organizations to raise funds by using forms of Crowd-sourcing, Crowd-Funding, and (online)

Elaboration on this warm glow can be found in Andreoni (1989 and 1990), Ribar and Wilhelm (1995), Mayo and Tinsley (2009) and many other studies. We refrain from analysing the feeling of joy itself, as this is irrelevant for our study. Impure altruism implies an inherent satisfaction of giving itself, regardless the outcome. This means that, referring to our definitions of chapter 1, Deci’s SDT and Lindenberg’s SPF, people indeed can be intrinsically motivated to give to charity through impure altruism. In our opinion, the weight of this intrinsic motivation differs for each individual and each separate case, depending on the degree of self-determination and the strength of one’s cognition. For instance, people can be intrinsically more motivated to a charity goal that personally has affected them or their kin. This confirms that altruism fits in the utility function of the individual. Concretely, charitable giving, though welfare-reducing, can be utility-enhancing (Andreoni, 1990). Referring to chapter 1, this would shift a part of the physical (P) to social wellbeing (S) through