Organizational Psychology

Purpose. The study evaluates the relationship between charity brand image and donors’ givingbehavior. Study design. We use qualitative data collected via online-survey (N = 97) to elicit significant characteristics of charities as perceived by donors. Based on qualitative findings we design 63 bipolarscales and test our instrument on a sample of donors, those who donated money (N = 91) and time (N =101). Findings. Using exploratory factor analysis, we obtain five factors explaining 40.9% (donors) and 43.5% (volunteers) of variance in the answers. Factor structure is different for donors and volunteers. Using regressions, we show that the five factors predict charitable intentions (repeated giving and recommendations) (R² = .607 for donors and R² = .569 for volunteers). Money donors highly value positive emotions associated with giving, whereas volunteers put more emphasis on smooth operationof the charity. We find that such characteristic as popularity (charity is well-known) is not significantly linked with repeated donations or recommendations. Value of the results. The results indicate that brand-image is an important path of attracting donors. These findings may help managers of charities better tailor their branding campaign by addressing appropriate groups of donors / volunteers. The study focuses on both actual and future giving behavior and utilizes a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to design and validate the survey instrument.