Are single‐gift committed donors different from their multiple‐gift counterparts?

Abstract

Committed donors who keep giving every year are a key asset for nonprofit organizations because they provide a steady funding source and return a higher lifetime value. We distinguish between committed donors who give only one gift per year (single-gift (SG) donors) and those who give multiple gifts in at least some year (multiple-gift (MG) donors). In this paper, we study whether SG donors and MG donors follow different longitudinal patterns of gift-giving in four consecutive years. We theorize that a donor's yearly gift amount is an indication of his or her willingness to give (WTG) to the organization and may be explained in terms of his or her intrinsic willingness to give (IWTG) and extrinsic willingness to give (EWTG) for that year. We test our theory with data from a leading US nonprofit organization and find that SG donors and MG donors would follow different longitudinal patterns:While SG donors and MG donors would start off at a similar level of WTG in year 1 and would both increase WTG in subsequent years, MG donors would record a higher rate of increase than SG donors. IWTG and EWTG would have different relative importance as determinants of the observed yearly giving level: MG donors depend on both IWTG and EWTG whereas SG donors largely depend on IWTG rather than EWTG to determine how much to give in a year.Our findings suggest that different strategies are needed to manage SG donors and MG donors to sustain and grow annual contributions.

Proceedings of the 17th International Research Symposium on Service Excellence in Management - QUIS17

“…Our results reveal that donors who contributed significantly during past periods and are also receptive to receiving marketing communications are those who tend to be part of the organization's regular membership portfolio. This study converges with previous research suggesting that donors follow different longitudinal patterns, and that those more active in giving (either by giving a greater number of gifts per year or larger sums of money) may be more responsive to marketing communications and solicitations from the nonprofit (Shen and Tsai, 2010). This result underscores the importance of taking into account factors other than giving behavior when explaining donor loyalty and commitment to nonprofit organizations.…”

Segmenting nonprofit stakeholders to enable successful relationship marketing: a review

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New versus Frequent Donors: Exploring the Behaviour of the Most Desirable Donors

“…However, research shows those giving once-a-year have a reduced level of responsiveness to requests for further support compared to supporters providing multiple-gifts each year (Shen and Tsai, 2010). For example, an excessive volume of detail sent about a charity can lead to a negative attitude to further giving, and risks donor support switching to another organisation (Bennett, 2009).…”