糖心TV

Kimberley Scharf

The usefulness of large social groups - the case of private charitable contributions

Alongside traditional fundraising activities – such as direct mail and advertising – which involve a direct approach from the charity to potential donors, the past couple of decades have witnessed a growth in individual-led fundraising in which the approach to potential donors comes from individuals who seek donations as sponsorship for a fundraising activity or in lieu of wedding or birthday presents. The dual attraction of individual-led fundraising for charities is both that personal solicitations can be effective (more so than solicitations from strangers, see Meer, 2012) and that individuals exploit their existing social groups (family, friends and colleagues) to identify potential donors.

In practice, the size of these social groups – and hence the number of potential donors – is likely to vary quite considerably across individuals. Some fundraisers will have a much bigger social group of friends, family and colleagues that they can approach. In this paper we empirically investigate the relationship between donations and group size in the real-world setting of online fundraising. In particular, we look at the relationship between the number of Facebook friends of the fundraiser at the time they posted their fundraising page to their Facebook page and the amount given by the donors. We find that individuals with larger social groups are not necessarily more successful at raising funds than individuals with smaller social groups. Although fundraisers with more friends can typically attract a large number of donors, there is a negative relationship between group size and the average amount that donors give. This is robust to controlling for a number of characteristics of the fundraiser, including gender, age and income.