Testing Mechanisms for Philanthropic Behaviour

Introduction This special issue of the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing presents a collection of nine papers testing mechanisms that drive philanthropic behaviour. These mechanisms are based on our literature review studying philanthropic donation behaviour (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2007, 2011). From over 500 scholarly papers, we distilled eight mechanisms that we consider the main drivers of philanthropic donation behaviour: (1) awareness of need; (2) solicitation; (3) costs and benefits; (4) altruism; (5) reputation; (6) psychological benefits; (7) values; and (8) efficacy. The overarching question all papers in this special issue contribute to answering is: What motivates people to display philanthropic behaviour? By testing one or more specific mechanisms that were derived from the philanthropic literature, the authors of the papers in this special issue increase our understanding of philanthropic behaviour. The majority of the papers in this special issue study donation behaviour. Two papers examine volunteering, and one paper studies blood donations. Interestingly, the papers on these other forms of philanthropic behaviour show that mechanisms driving different types of philanthropic behaviour are similar....

• View at Publisher