Fundraising Principles and Practice, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER FIVESOCIAL INFLUENCES ON GIVING

Objectives

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

1. Understand and describe the social giving model.
2. Explain what is meant by the donor's self-concept and why it is important in determining behavior.
3. Understand the effect that societal factors may have on giving.
4. Understand the following concepts and how to integrate them into the design of fundraising communication:
   1. Social Influence – including informational and normative influence;
   2. Social Networks; and
   3. Social Identities – including social category-based, group attraction-based, and organizational-based social identities.
5. Understand how to capture identity and use it to boost the response to appeals.

Introduction

In Chapter 4, we described the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of American donors and explained why and how giving decisions were taken through our individual giving model. The focus of that chapter was largely on how individuals make giving decisions in isolation. In this chapter, we supplement this by examining the social context for giving and explore how fundraisers can use an understanding of this dimension when designing their communications. We begin by offering a social giving model and, as previously, explaining each dimension in turn.

A Social Giving Model

At the core of the social giving model is the individual who gives (Figure 5.1 ...