Empirical study of donors' intention to generate positive word-of-mouth: The influence of donation process participation and charitable cause

Abstract

Facing the public credibility crisis, NPOs lack effective channel to accumulate funds from individuals. And as a special product category, charitable giving causes higher perceived risk than other product categories. The positive word-of-mouth (abbreviated as WoM) from donor can reduce the perceived risk and effectively broaden the publicity and fund-raising channel of NPOs. This paper is an empirical research through 301 questionnaires. The result shows donors' positive WoM intention will be influenced by the participation level of donation process, importance of charitable cause and donors' satisfaction. Moreover, donation process participation and charitable cause can directly affect donors' positive WoM intention and also influence the intention through donors' satisfaction. This study will enrich current studies on the factors that affect donors' intentions of WoM and provide valuable suggestion for NPO's management strategy of WoM.