Give where you live: A social network analysis of charitable donations reveals localized prosociality

Abstract

Millions of charities compete for donations, yet no empirical study has examined patterns of shared giving behavior across the nonprofit sector. To understand which types of charities are more likely to share donors, we conducted a social network analysis using behavioral data from 1,504,848 donors to 52 large charities in Australia. Three hypotheses were tested, which considered how patterns of shared donations may be determined by charity sub-type (e.g., health, social services, religious), type of beneficiaries (i.e., humans, animals, the environment), or geographic focus (i.e., international, national, regional). Overall, results indicate that patterns of shared giving are strongly shaped by geography: international charities typically share donors, as do charities operating in the same local region. Some-albeit inconsistent-evidence also emerged to support the notion that sub-type may be an organizing principle for donation distributions, but little support was found for the idea that beneficiaries influence shared giving patterns. A key managerial implication is that the practice of supporter list swapping may be most beneficial when lists are shared between organizations that both operate in the same geographic region rather than between organizations that both operate as the same subtype of charity or both share similar beneficiaries. | INTRODUCTIONEach year, Australians donate over $10 billion to charities and nonprofits; yet this giving is dispersed among over 59,000 registered charities (ACNC, 2021). This kind of dispersed giving is observed all around the world: for example, there are 168,000 registered charities in the United Kingdom and over 1.5 million in the United States (Charity Commission, 2018;NCCS, 2020). Despite the importance of understanding how donors distribute their charitable dollars across the charity network, only a handful of studies have considered the question of charity section at all and no empirical research has investigated which types of charities are more likely to attract the same donors. For example, do charities share donors in relatively arbitrary ways, or rather are patterns of shared giving behavior explained by charity sub-type, beneficiaries served, or geographic focus? The current study fills this important gap by conducting a social network analysis on transactional data from over 1.5 million donors to examine their patterns of shared giving between 52 large charities. | Understanding charity selectionCharitable giving refers to voluntary donations of money that benefit non-kin others (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011a). Traditionally, scholars of giving have focused primarily on identifying who gives to charity and

We Usually Give Like This: Social Norms Describe Typical Charitable Causes Supported by Group Members

“…Yet charitable giving preferences cannot exclusively be understood based on a norm to benefit the ingroup. For example, some people give to animal charities, environmental charities, or international charities (Chapman et al, 2020; Chapman, Louis, Masser, Hornsey, & Broccatelli, 2022), all of which serve beneficiaries outside the donors’ social groups (see also Nilsson et al, 2020). Early studies on charity selection indicate that different kinds of donors give to different kinds of causes: for example, women are more likely to give to animal charities while men are more likely to support sports organizations (e.g., Neumayr & Handy, 2019; Piper & Schnepf, 2008); older people give more to welfare, religious, and health charities while younger people give to environmental groups and animal welfare (e.g., Chapman et al, 2018; Srnka et al, 2003); progressives are more likely to give to international causes than conservatives (e.g., Chapman et al, 2018; Wiepking, 2010); and people who are more religious show preferences toward religious, international, and welfare charities, but are less likely to give to animal or environmental causes (e.g., Casale & Baumann, 2015; Chapman et al, 2018; Oxley, 2022; Schnable, 2015).…”

“…Yet comparatively few studies consider the psychology of charity selection , or who prefers to give to which charities and why. To illustrate the disparity in research attention, a systematic review on charitable giving research published in the last 40 years identified 1,337 articles on giving (Chapman, Louis, Masser, & Thomas, 2022); yet there are only around 20 articles examining charity selection (see summaries by Chapman, Louis, Masser, Hornsey, & Broccatelli, 2022; Neumayr & Handy, 2019). Further research on the psychological processes underpinning charity selection is therefore warranted.…”

Connecting groups and behaviours: A network analysis of identity‐infused behaviours

“…Networks are also particularly useful in identifying polarization and clustering in data sets; they have been used to map attitudes -linked by individuals who share them -as a novel means of detecting attitudinal alignment and the emergence of polarized opinion-based groups that go on to demonstrate differences in their behaviour (Dinkelberg et al, 2021;Maher et al, 2020). Similarly, geographically based clusters of prosociality have also been identified in networks of charitable giving (Chapman et al, 2022). In numerous domains, the method offers a straightforward and theoretically informed way of conceptualizing, inductively identifying and quantifying connections among constructs in a network.…”

Impact of emotional appeal on non‐profit advertising: A neurophysiological analysis

“…Non‐profit organisations (NPOs) seeking to promote social welfare and help with humanitarian activities for the less fortunate (Chang & Lee, 2009) have used advertising to communicate their causes and persuade the audience to donate. But nowadays, the amount of competition between NPOs has increased (Chapman et al, 2022; Small & Verrochi, 2009), and these organisations must find effective ways to communicate their causes because individual donors are the largest source of donations (Chang & Lee, 2009; Choi et al, 2020; Gugenishvili, 2022).…”

“…Thus, there are also environmental NPOs whose main objective is to protect, preserve and improve the environment. According to Chapman et al (2022), people donate according to their personal preferences and values and to reflect their identities. Thus they give to different causes.…”