The question of how donors decide which charities to support, as opposed to questions about whether to give and how much to give, has been under-researched. This article presents findings from a qualitative study of 60 committed donors in the United Kingdom and concludes that charitable decision making is primarily driven by donors' tastes and personal background, and that inertia and path dependency also account for many of their current donation decisions. Despite subscribing to popular beliefs that charitable giving should be directed primarily to the needy, donors often support organisations that promote their own preferences, that help people with whom they feel some affinity and that support causes that relate to their own life experiences.

In philanthropic research, much attention has been given to the impact of the actual costs of giving. In this paper we argue that, in addition to actual costs, the perceived costs of giving should be taken into consideration when seeking to understand the incidence and scale of charitable giving. We know from the economic and sociological literature that people differ in their attitudes towards money (Furnham and Argyle 1998;Zelizer 1989) attitudes towards money are rarely considered as a key explanatory factor behind the propensity to give and decisions regarding size of gifts. This paper seeks to rectify that situation by focusing on hypotheses that explore the effects of money perceptions on charitable giving. The hypotheses are developed from qualitative data found in existing UK datasets in which the wealthy account for their decision to give or withhold donations. We find that, regardless of the actual financial resources held by the individual, the decision to give and the size of gift are negatively affected by feelings of retention (a careful approach to money) and inadequacy (people who worry about their financial situation). Feeling financial secure positively affects the act of making donations. We conclude that money perceptions are an additional significant variable in explaining incidence and level of charitable donations.Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland's first home-grown billionaire and the most prominent contemporary UK philanthropist, recently explained how he tries to enthuse his fellow superrich to follow his philanthropic lead. He tells them, "I'm having the time of my life and I want to

• There is a long-standing ethical debate regarding the 'right' representation of recipients in charity marketing materials that are intended to accurately define and represent social problems whilst also prompting the maximum response in voluntary income. The study presented in this article makes a contribution to that debate by highlighting the views of charity beneficiaries regarding their representation in fundraising campaigns. Drawing on data from five focus groups conducted in cities across England, we explore the views of young homeless people regarding the images of homelessness that appeared in major charity campaigns aimed at raising money to fund homelessness services. Participants displayed a high level of reflexivity, demonstrating that they understood the issues involved with homelessness and the perceptions of people like themselves that exist in the public sphere and in the consciousness of potential donors. Although the participants held the view that maximising revenues through the use of simple, eye-catching images is the prime goal of fundraising, they also expressed a desire for more nuanced campaigns that tell the dynamic stories of how people become homeless and the use of imagery that elicits empathy rather than merely arouses sympathy.

What are unpopular causes and how can they achieve fundraising success? Abstract

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