1. Giving, philanthropy
and creating a
democratic society
Findings from studies of
donor choice
Beth Breeze, University of Kent
CGAP Conference, 9th May 2013

2. Overview
1. Why do people give?
2. Findings from three studies:
- How donors choose charities
- User views of fundraising
- Corporate philanthropy from the shop floor
3. Implications and conclusions: can philanthropy create a democratic society?
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3. Why do people give?
Economic theories
Personal benefits
Future benefit/Public Good theory
Enlightened self-interest
Warm glow
Psychological theories
Empathy-altruism hypothesis
Negative-state relief model
Identification/In-group membership
Sociological theories
Social embeddedness
Network ties
Cultural contexts
Role modelling
Identity work www.shaw-trust.org.uk

4. Study 1: How donors choose charities
Research question
How do donors choose from the c.80,000+ fundraising charities, when it’s not possible
to research or process the merits of all alternative recipients?
Methodology
60 semi-structured telephone interviews conducted between January-August 2009
with a sample recruited in 3 waves with the assistance of the Charities Aid
Foundation.
 All 60 interviewees are CAF account holders
 c.1/3 high income, 1/3 middle income, 1/3 lower income (self-described)
 Interviews lasted on average 25 mins (min=12 mins; max= 46 min)
 22 women, 38 men
 c.1/3 from the North, 2/3 from the South
 Spread of ages from 30s-80s with 60s most highly represented decade
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5. Giving decisions are difficult
“The trouble is there’s so many”
“I couldn’t really have any definite reason for saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but you can’t support the lot. I stick
a pin in”.
“It’s amazing what comes through the door, and you’ve got no means of making an objective
judgement”.
Why did I choose those particular ones? Well, that has been a bit haphazard to be quite honest with
you. I mean, I’ve sort of come across them as I’ve gone along”
“I don’t think I go into it that deeply. If I’m satisfied it’s being helpful and there’s a need... you know,
we’re keen to help”
“I’m not methodical about it... I don’t have any very good way of choosing… I just go by gut instinct I
suppose”.
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6. Donors believe giving decisions should be needs-driven
“To be a charitable concern, a recipient had to be ‘in need’”
(Fenton, Golding et al 1993:23)
Why do charities exist?
“To help needy people”
“To do something worthwhile”
“To do good works”
“To help people without a voice”
Who do charities help?
“The needy”
“The underprivileged”
“People in a disadvantaged position”
“People who can’t defend themselves”
“People I feel sorry for”
“People who are worse off than me”
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7. Yet we find 4 non-needs-based approaches to giving
1. Taste-based giving
2. Decisions related to donors’ personal background
3. Decisions based on perceptions of charities’ competence
4. Decisions driven by desire to make an impact
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8. Taste-based giving
“It’s really what in one’s own mind one thinks is a deserving cause, and it does range,
you know, hugely widely, and totally irrationally. I mean, I would support deserving dogs
but I wouldn’t support cats [laughs] because I just happen not to like cats”
“I donate to the RSPB [Royal Society for the Protection of Birds] because birdwatching
is one of my great obsessions. It’s my, kind of, my treat to myself, if you like”.
“I’m a passionate skier, so a personal favourite is a charity that provides snow sports
opportunities for people with disabilities”
“Appropriate beneficiaries are people who are hard up… [but] I did put a rather large
sum into helping to buy and restore an old Victorian steam engine… I hope maybe
when it gets going I might be allowed to stand on the footplate and blow the whistle!”
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9. Donors’ personal background
“I grew up by the sea so I support the RNLI”
“I have a child and the very first thing I started off doing was child sponsorship”
“My brother died of bowel cancer so I give to cancer research”
“[I support] butterfly conservation. When I was a boy I collected butterflies so I’m trying
to give back, if you like, the damage that I did [because] in those days you were
encouraged to kill butterflies and collect them, so that’s an important one”
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10. Perceptions of charities’ competence
“I don’t think you want [to support] people who’ve got great big offices and give great big
salaries and things like that”.
“I understand X charity are extremely good at delivering their money on site, so to
speak, and they keep their administration costs as low as they can, but so much of this
is hearsay isn’t it? Unless you pore over the books and understand what you’re reading,
I think it’s very difficult”
“If they send too many [pieces of direct mail] I feel they’re just wasting the money, not
spending it properly and so we cut them out”
“If they get my address wrong, they don’t get a gift”
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11. A desire for personal impact
“I support them, but as there are a million members I don’t feel I need to respond to
every appeal from them, somebody else can!”
“The impression I got is they are well-off compared to other charities”
“We didn’t really want to support things where we felt our contribution was negligible”
“I probably have gone for major charities because I feel they have more clout”
“I hate to think that we’re doing things that the government ought to do”
“With things like the XXX, I mean they’re quite well funded but it’s just something I
believe in”
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12. Conclusions
• Donors are not just limited by money, but also by the amount of information they are
able to gather, their ability to compare the merits of alternative recipients, and the
amount of time they are willing, and able, to devote to decision-making.
• Donors are social beings whose charitable outlook is shaped by their life-long social
experiences.
• Donors retain an expectation that charities exist to serve the needy, yet in reality do
not give to the most urgent needs - they give to things that mean something to
them.
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13. Study 2: User views of Fundraising
Research question
What do the beneficiaries of homelessness charities think about the representation of
homeless people in fundraising literature?
Methodology
Five focus groups held in 2010/11 with users of a range of services at
homelessness charities and hostels in cities across England:
 38 participants, all with direct personal experience of homelessness.
 Users of hostels, drop-in centres and family centres.
 19 men and 19 women, majority aged 16-25.
 Mix of ethnic backgrounds.
 Participants asked their opinion on images from a variety of fundraising campaigns
•Do the images in these campaigns reflect what it is like to be homeless?
•Why do you think homelessness charities choose certain images?
•Do you think the public understand homelessness?
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14. Findings
1. Income maximisation is the priority, despite frustration at simplified fundraising
imagery that fails to educate donors.
“If the organisation haven’t got their money in the first place to help you then the whole system
breaks down, really and truly. Just get the money, by hook or crook, y’know?”
2. A preference for adverts that tell the story of how people become homeless.
“I think that focusing on how it happens will make everyone think: ‘Oh god, it could happen to
me’, instead of: ‘It’s alright, I haven’t got a beard and I don’t drink that much’!”
3. A dislike of fundraising campaigns that use ‘pity pictures’ to merely arouse
sympathy rather than elicit empathy.
“For the majority of people, you show a young kid looking sad, you show an old man freezing to
death, it’s gonna play on people’s heartstrings… but I don’t think it’s gonna do anything about
the issues”
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15. User view: the most popular image
“That is exactly what homelessness is. There’s no
people, it’s just whoever is on that bit of cardboard in
the snow, that’s what being homeless is”
“It crosses all the stereotypes, there’s no one there
so you can use your own imagination and think:
‘Wow, try sleeping in it’”
“If there’s someone in it, you could make them play
the victim card. You can make a judgement if there’s
someone there… cos usually you just see big old
men in duffel coats. I mean, that’s the initial thought
of a homeless person. Whereas that one, anybody
could be sleeping on that.”
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16. Study 3: Corporate philanthropy from the shopfloor
Research questions
1. Why do shop floor employees get involved in workplace fundraising activities?
2. What criteria are involved in the selection of charitable beneficiaries?
3. What, if anything, is distinctive about the shop-floor perspective?
Methodology
 Observational methods in ten different workplaces in the South East of England
 Anonymity promised, includes 2 supermarkets,2 retail banks, a restaurant, a
gambling company and an administrative office within a larger institution.
 Fieldwork took place between August 2011 and May 2012
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17. Findings
1. Corporate philanthropy remains primarily controlled from the top and driven by a business case
2. Despite some devolution of decision-making, the company expects some alignment with company
objectives
3. Staff involvement in selecting charitable beneficiaries can be rather tokenistic
4. Staff do not always take up the offer of participation
5. Decision-making by shop floor staff reflects personal experiences and preferences
6. The spread of more democratic procedures favours more established charities and ‘safer’ causes
7. Despite selecting serious causes, shop floor staff expect that the process of supporting charity will
be fun and will enliven their working lives
8. As well as opportunities for light-hearted fun, employee fundraising also creates temporary
opportunities to challenge corporate hierarchies

18. SF fundraising = ‘good enough’ cause + fun
“You’ve got to make it fun, cos you don’t get many fun days down there, believe me. Down there on
the shop floor. You know, it’s hard work. People are working constantly. They come in and do a long
shift, lugging boxes, putting things on the shelves, bringing things out of the chillers you know, and
they do work hard.
So it’s nice to have a bit of fun. You go down the chilled meat, and there’s some guy standing there
in a blue wig and some Elton John blue sunglasses. It’s just a bit of fun and the customers love it as
well, they comment and they chat to them then.”
“Last year we had all of our section leaders and half our managers having their legs waxed and
chests waxed. [More animated voice] Yeah! It was cool. We were meant to have a waxer come in,
but she let me down at the last minute so we let the colleagues come and do it [lots of laughter].
Yeahh! [more laughter]. Some of them had their chests done, some of them had their backs done,
some of them had their legs done.”
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19. Why do people give – a simpler
explanation?

20. So what?... some overall conclusions
• Charitable giving and philanthropy is – and always have been – supply-led rather than demand-driven.
• Donor autonomy - the freedom to distribute as much as one wants, to whom one chooses - is what
differentiates giving from paying tax.
• Policies may affect levels of giving, but it is donors’ tastes, experiences, enthusiasms and opinions that
drive their specific giving decisions.
• Despite hopes apparent in much philanthropy policy making, donors resist the notion of giving as a
substitute for public spending.
• Despite other hopes by people concerned about democracy and social change, these are not primary
concerns of donors.
• Philanthropy can enrich both the public good and donors’ lives, but it cannot be relied upon to ‘fill the
gaps’ in public sector spending cuts nor to create a more democratic society.
Wt cannotw.s, passions and
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21. Can philanthropy create a more democratic society?
Yes, of course it can – but there’s no reason why it should.
How could we ‘nudge’ that along?
1. Donor incentives (e.g. matched funding / preferential tax breaks)
2. Charity / Cause support – e.g. strategic funding for capacity building
3. Social norms – greater celebration / affirmation for certain types of giving?
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22. Please feel free to stay in touch
Dr Beth Breeze
Centre for Philanthropy
University of Kent
Email: b.breeze@kent.ac.uk
Twitter: @UKCPhilanthropy
Blog: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/philanthropy/
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