Did you donate? Talking about donations predicts compliance with solicitations for donations

Abstract

Many forms of prosocial behaviour are highly institutionalized. They are facilitated by organizations that broker between donors and recipients. A highly effective tool that organizations use to elicit prosocial behaviour are solicitations for donations (e.g., of blood, time, or money). Using register and survey data on blood donations in the Netherlands, we examine to what extent compliance with these solicitations is predicted by being recruited via word of mouth (WOM) and talking about donations. Our model predicts that donors that are one unit higher on our measure of talking about donations (range = 1–4) have a 2.9 percentage points higher compliance with solicitations for donations. In addition, this association is stronger for novice donors. Our study demonstrates the social embedding of the donors’ decision-making processes about compliance. For practice, our results imply that organizations may increase their contributors’ communication about donations to increase the effectiveness of their solicitations.

The availability of plasma donors and plasma: A sociologist's perspective

“…Enough plasma donations by voluntary donors are one step towards achieving sufficient supply. To understand, explain and influence donation, studies have proposed different groups of determinants [9], including demographic characteristics [10], biological make‐up, psychological mechanisms, such as reciprocity and reputation [11], and social network characteristics [12, 13]. Yet, previous research remained fragmented across disciplines and current theories fail to capture the complexity and dynamics of changing motivations and life course circumstances that determine donation [14, 15].…”

Influencers and donations: The impact of source and product benefits

“…However, the authors also note that social media campaigns may experience slacktivism (i.e., supporting a cause online with minimal effort and commitment), leading to less donations and more social media flurry overtime. In the case of blood donations, talking about donations lead to higher compliance (Schröder et al, 2023). Altogether, these findings indicate that WOM can serve as an antecedent of donor behavior and charitable giving.…”