I recently came across this interesting working paper called Who Gives? A Literature Reivew of Predictors of Charitable Giving by Rene Bekkers from the University of Amsterdam and Pamela Wiepking from the University of Rotterdam.  There’s some potentially useful information in here for fundraisers (as well as an extensive ‘further reading list’ of other studies), so I thought it would be helpful to summarize some of the main findings.  This is the first of two papers on the Who Gives? theme.  Each look at possible indicators for donating to charity.  This first paper covers four areas: religion, education, age and socialization.

Religion

Studies show a correlation between religious attendance and charitable contributions i.e. the more often someone attends religious services the more likely they are to donate to charity and donate larger amounts.  There are a number of factors that could play a roll in this, but Bekkers & Wiepking have narrowed in down to three main ones:

1. solicitation -  people are asked to donate more often in religious communities
2. reputation – social reward for donating
3. values – giving aligns with how people want to see themselves

Interestingly, the literature review shows that religious people are not more willing to donate to charity than the non-religious, they just have the “mechanisms” (above) that create a condition ripe for higher value and more frequent donations.  In other words, the social norms towards charitable giving in religious communities are what appear to account for higher donations.

Education

Lots of studies show a correlation between level of education and level of charitable giving (higher education = higher charitable giving) – Bekkers & Wiepking cite about three dozen of them!  But this is a commonly held belief among most fundraisers – especially universities that rely on their alma mater to fund large capital campaigns.

But other studies show that it’s not so straight forward.  The types of organizations that benefit form this education=donation correlation can vary:

In a study of donations to specific types of charitable organisations in Austria, education was positively related to donations to environment and animal protection, development aid, and human rights but negatively related to donations to health care and emergency aid (Srnka, Grohs, & Eckler, 2003).

Throw the field of study into the mix and it complicates matters further: one study found those with a social science degree donate the most, another found they donate the least and law grads donate the most, and yet another found that economics grads give less than those in other social science fields, etc.  Add to this some studies that found a strong correlation between IQ and donation amounts, other studies that found no link between education and donations and you have what are some pretty confusing and inclusive results.

All this to say, don’t read too much into the level and type of education of your donors…unless of course you’re fundraising for an academic institution.

Age

Lots of research finds a positive correlation between age and donation amount, with a levelling off or decreasing after a certain age.  What is not universally agreed upon is that peak age – some studies say 65, some 75 and some as low as 45.

Bekkers & Wiepking suggest that this age-donation correlation might be largely down to lifecycles.  That is, older people tend to have higher disposable income and higher level of religious involvement, which as we saw above indicates higher donations.  In other words, older people aren’t necessarily more intrinsically altruistic than younger people, they just have the right set of life circumstances that lead them to donation more to charity.

Socialization

Does your upbringing influence your charitable giving behaviour later in life? Probably.  Here’s what some of the studies they cite find:

• People who grow up in a religious household give more to charity
• Parental volunteering likely increase their children’s propensity to give
• Volunteering as teenagers increases giving as adults

Here’s the complex graph way of putting it:

source: Bekkers & Wiepking

So, essentially the more your parents educate you about and involve you in volunteering and giving, the more likely you are you donate (and donate larger amounts) when you’re an adult.  I would also add that peer association – both as a youth and adult – has as much as if not more of an influence on giving behaviour.  See for example Judith Rich Harris’s book The Nurture Assumption, which challenges the commonly held belief that parental upbringing is the be all and end all of personality development – arguing instead that peer interactions play a more prominent role in this respect.

Conclusion

So, is this information really all that helpful for charities and fundraisers? Maybe. But most of these studies are correlations, which, as the saying goes, does not equal causation.  However, there seem to be some concrete ideas that can come of this.  For example, involving children and young people in your work through volunteering and engagement opportunities will increase the likelihood that they will donate to your charity later in life.  This is consistent with alma mater giving to universities and ‘repayers’ who give to organizations that they used/helped them earlier in life (e.g. Big Brothers and Big Sisters, YMCA/YWCA, etc.).

I still firmly believe that behaviour is a better way of prospecting and segmenting donors than demographics.  So, basing fundraising decisions on things like age or education are going to turn out a mixed bag of donors that have little in common that draw them to your cause.  But childhood association with your cause and socialization activities (e.g. religious affiliations) are more likely to indicate that people will donate to your charity.