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Understanding Online Donor Behavior: The Role of Donor Characteristics,

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International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 17: 219–230 (2012)
Published online 19 June 2012 in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.1425

Understanding online donor behavior: the

role of donor characteristics, perceptions
of the internet, website and program, and
influence from social networks
Micheal L. Shier* and Femida Handy
School of Social Policy & Practice, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

• Online donation platforms, albeit a recent phenomenon, are becoming more important for human
service nonprofits, allowing them to reach a broader target population of donors at relatively little cost.
In developing countries such as India, internet use is flourishing, and this has allowed fund-raisers to
reach a population hitherto difficult to reach. A cross-sectional research design was utilized to survey
donors of one online donation program in India (n = 479). This research was exploratory, investigating
the factors that influence people’s willingness to donate online, including the socio-demographic
characteristics of donors. Results show that gender, perception of the organization, and influence from
others are variables that influence the likelihood of donating online. Further research and implications
for human service nonprofits seeking to undertake online charitable campaigns are discussed.
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: donating, online, internet, charity, organizations

Investigating the reasons why people donate to
charitable organizations has become a necessary
topic in recent years for many important reasons.
For example, donations have become significant
for the sustainability of some human service nonpro-
fits as they continue to experience difficulties in
meeting their operating costs; a result of govern-
ment cutbacks in social spending and/or increasing
need in local communities (Anheier, 2004, 2009;
Handy et al., 2006; Mayer, 2003; Powell, 2007). Also,
often times, new programs or initiatives for service
recipients are in response to omissions in existing
programs and can be in conflict with current
*Correspondence to: Micheal L. Shier, School of Social Policy &
Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, 19104-6214 USA.
E-mail: mshier@sp2.upenn.edu
government mandates. Therefore, as new programs
and initiatives develop, non-governmental sources
of funding are needed. The ability of human service
nonprofits to meet newly established goals can
become contingent then on securing sufficient
resources from private sources (i.e., individuals,
foundations, or businesses).
The context of this study was an online donating
platform supporting the financial needs of commu-
nity human service nonprofits in India. Many of
the funding challenges described previously also
occur in India. Although nonprofits, often referred
to in India as non-governmental organizations
(NGOs), have existed throughout India prior to In-
dependence (1947), many of these were focused
on gaining freedom and political rights, in addition
to providing services to the poor. Since then, there

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
220
has been a shift towards providing a greater number
of human services by NGOs and advocating for
lower castes, women, and the environment. In fact,
many human services are not provided by the
Indian government and are instead largely supplied
by local NGOs (Handy et al., 2006). Currently in
India (like elsewhere), human service NGOs are
seen as agents of development, especially in rural
areas where governments lack resources or are inef-
ficient and bureaucratic (Datta, 2000), and where
there is a great deal of poverty (Chaudhuri and
Gupta, 2009). The need for their services almost
always exceeds the supply of the services; for exam-
ple, in rural areas in India, nearly 60% of children
younger than 2 years were not fully immunized, and
nearly 70% of women do not receive any antenatal
care (International Institute for Population Sciences,
2007). It is no surprise then that there is an increasing
pressure on human service NGOs in India to find new
ways of fund-raising to secure resources to take care
of the unmet needs. Using online platforms to gener-
ate donations from the public (locally, nationally,
and internationally) is becoming a popular and rela-
tively inexpensive way for many human service
NGOs to raise necessary funds.
Understanding the factors that contribute to a
person’s willingness to donate online via an online
platform can have important implications for locally
based human service NGOs all over the world. By
providing a means for individuals to donate quickly,
directly and easily, NGOs and donors waste less time
and money receiving and sending donations online.
For donors, the vetting information provided by
online donating platforms reduces transaction costs,
and they are better able to target a particular popu-
lation, a geographical area, and others. Money from
donors’ credit and debit cards can be accessed by
NGOs relatively easily and efficiently around the
globe. (Allen et al., 1996; Finn, 1999; Johnston,
1999; Miller and Strauss, 1996; Zeff, 1996). This in
turn increases the reach for fund-raising across tradi-
tional geographical boundaries and gives NGOs a
much larger donor base. Consequently, online
platforms allowing the transfer of money make it
efficient, both for the donor and recipients.
Online global fund-raising has played an impor-
tant role in providing aid and relief to communities
recovering from natural or manmade disasters.
Due to the widespread media attention generated
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Micheal L. Shier and Femida Handy
in the aftermath of a crisis, it is possible to garner
public confidence and promote online giving; espe-
cially if the fund-raising is run by large well-known
and reputable international organizations (e.g., Red
Cross and World Vision). However, for local or smal-
ler community-based non-profit organizations lack-
ing the resources or reputation, it is difficult to
mount online fund-raising campaigns that have the
required legitimacy or that can achieve the required
publicity for attracting online donations. Thus, they
may rely on existing online fund-raising platforms
that have garnered a reputation for honesty and
legitimacy and outsource their online fund-raising.
These fund-raising platforms are run by fund-raising
professionals who represent a multitude of NGOs and
conduct a fund-raising campaign, much similar to the
United Way who have traditionally done fund-raising
on behalf of other non-profits. The fund-raising
platforms encourage donors to target their donations
among the numerous NGOs they represent. The
question that arises and that is posed in this research,
is what factors might contribute to whether or not
people donate online to small organizations via online
fund-raising platforms that represent a multitude of
non-profit organizations?
Literature review
Before the advent of the internet, fund-raising was car-
ried out in many ways, such as direct mail campaigns,
telephone solicitation, door-to-door solicitation, and
others. There exist several studies investigating these
“offline” (non-internet based) fund-raising activities
for nonprofits (Doob and McLaughlin, 1989; Handy,
2000; Sargeant, 2001; Bekkers and Wiepking, 2011).
One limitation within this is inquiry into the
extent to which these same factors predict online
donating behavior.
The capacity and inclination of the individual to
give are the two primary components identified in
the current literature on why people are involved in
offline giving (Mesch et al., 2006; Schervish, 1997;
Wolpert, 1997). Capacity generally refers to a per-
son’s human and financial resources (level of educa-
tion and income, respectively), and inclination
typically refers to the social and psychological pro-
pensity that a person has towards giving. Social pro-
pensity includes demographic characteristics and
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Understanding online donor behavior
people’s social experiences that contribute to their
willingness to donate, including participation in reli-
gious activities, involvement with organizations and
volunteering, and experiences within social networks
(Schervish and Havens, 1997; Wang and Graddy,
2008). Individuals with larger social networks are
more likely to be asked to donate, which increases
their probability of donating. Education, it is argued,
also increases the individual’s networks, as does
employment and religious participation, and we use
these variables as proxies for social propensity (Doob
and McLaughlin, 1989; Heitzmann et al., 2009). We
hypothesize that donor characteristics, such as
higher levels of religiosity, income, education, employ-
ment, and number of hours volunteered would
increase the likelihood that people donate online.
Psychological propensity to give is also identified
as a factor in explaining why certain individuals
give. It is comprised of attributes of the person’s
personality that contribute to their motivation to
give. For example, people with certain altruistic
personality characteristics are more likely to donate
than people without these traits (Bekkers, 2004;
Schervish, 1997). In economic theory, a distinction
is made between two variables that categorize
motivation for giving: altruism and “warm glow”
(Harbaugh et al., 2007). Within social psychology,
emphasis has been placed on understanding the
self-reported motivations individuals provide as
their reasons to donate (Crosson et al., 2009; Piferi
et al., 2006; Smith and McSweeney, 2007). In the
discipline of social work, emphasis has been placed
on the public’s confidence in charitable organiza-
tions to explain why people give (Edwards et al.,
1996; O’Neill, 2009; Weinbach, 2003). Since we do
not ask whether individuals donate in principle,
and they may well also donate to other organiza-
tions using traditional methods, we use only the lat-
ter explanation for our purposes. It is more relevant
to online donations that individuals have confidence
in the internet technology, which would impact
their use of online donation platforms. We hypothe-
size that if individuals’ perception of the internet
technology was positive, it would increase their like-
lihood of donating online.
The literature on online donating suggests the
need to consider other aspects of online fund-raising
platforms that enable individuals to donate. This
literature describes several things, such as the
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
221
importance of website design and accessibility
(Burlingame and Poston, 1999; Epner, 2004; Hart,
2002; Holt and Horn, 2005; Marx, 2000; Warwick
et al., 2002). We thus investigate whether there
are such characteristics of the website that contrib-
ute to a person’s willingness to donate, as well as
their overall confidence in the internet. We hypoth-
esize that if individuals rated these characteristics of
the website more favorably, it would increase the
likelihood of their donating online.
Another literature finds that people have to be
engaged or feel connected to a concrete cause or
issue, and that the distance between the donor and
the recipients is negatively correlated to the likeli-
hood of making a donation (Bekkers, 2009; Lee
et al., 1999). In the situation of online giving, the
connection between the donor and the recipient
may be more distant—it certainly was the case for
the online donating program analyzed in the present
study. Other scholars suggest that there are also
certain perceived aspects of the fund-raiser that
can contribute to whether or not people donate
money, such as trusting the information received
and the reputation of the organization (Handy,
2000). Sargeant and Hudson (2008) found that the
higher the measure of performance of an organiza-
tion, the more people will donate to that organiza-
tion. This finding seems to be about perceived
accountability, a similar finding in Berman and
Davidson’s (2003) study. We hypothesize that more
positive perceptions of the online donating plat-
form regarding trust and accountability would
increase the likelihood that people donate online.
Alternative explanations are also a necessary con-
sideration when surveying reasons for online dona-
tions. For example, one question of interest in the
case of online donations is how donors might be in-
fluenced to use online platforms. Thus, we included
questions about how people got to this particular
website. For example: did other people in partici-
pants’ personal and professional lives influence
their willingness to donate (i.e., did a friend or
family member suggest donating online)? These foci
of questions help us to better understand if people
were influenced to donate online from a third party
and if this is an alternative explanation for their
willingness to donate online. We hypothesize that
the greater the influence of others to donate online,
the more likely they were to donate online.
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
222 Micheal L. Shier and Femida Handy

Finally, socio-demographics of gender and age
have been linked to online donating behavior (Choi
and Chou, 2001; Lee and Chang, 2007; Ostrower,
1996), and we control for them as we investigate
the factors likely to impact online donating. As
access to internet technology is more frequent in
urban areas in India than rural areas for a number
of reasons, including issues of reliable electricity
and connectivity (Rao, 2005), we also control for
urban or rural residence of the respondent.
In summary, this literature of why people donate
suggests that individuals give for a variety of reasons,
and that their donations are influenced by complex
factors. For the most part, we have no a priori
reasons that giving online will be motivated for
different reasons than offline donations, with one
exception: individuals must trust the Internet
technology to provide safe and effective transfer of
money. Thus, the medium of fund-raising can
impact giving in so far as it may be perceived as a
less trustworthy or credible forum and more vulner-
able to scams. Our predictor variables from the
previous discussions are summarized in Table 1:
Context of the study
GiveIndia (www.giveindia.com), headquartered in
Mumbai, India provided a unique example of a
fund-raising platform within an international setting
in order to investigate these issues further. People
do not give to GiveIndia, they give through
GiveIndia, which is a web-based platform for receiv-
ing donations on behalf of a multitude of Indian
NGOs providing community level social, health,
financial, and other human services. Potential
donors have the opportunity to select a particular
cause or organization in India to donate. Other sim-
ilar online donating platforms include GlobalGiving,
BetterPlace.org, JustGive.org, and DonorsChoose.
org. The use of the internet in fund-raising is a
growing phenomenon worldwide (Fine and Kanter,
2010; McPherson, 2007).
The use of online platforms for donations has
grown considerably in recent years. This is
evidenced by the increasing amount of money
donated through these online organizations or
programs. For instance, Vanderkam (2010) points
out that the online programs “Modest Needs grew
from $194 379 to $2.7m in revenue, GlobalGiving
grew from $508 653 to $7.4m and DonorsChoose.
org grew from $2.8 to $18m” between the years of
2004 and 2008 (p.11A). In India, it is estimated that
the annual private charitable giving amount is
between $5 and $6bn, accounting for approxi-
mately 0.3% and 0.4% of India’s gross domestic
product (GDP) (Sheth and Singhal, 2011).
With GiveIndia, donors learn about the charitable
organizations related to the cause they are interested
in and can target their donations with acuity—one
can choose the cause and the target recipient and as-
semble a donation to suit one’s interests (for example,
providing free medical checkups for 12 months for
three women over the age of 70 years, in a specific

Table 1. Predictor variables and hypothesized relationships with proclivity to give

Impact on proclivity to give

Predictor variables (independent variable) (dependent variable)

Donor characteristics: Income +

Capacity to give Education +
Networks
Inclination to give Religiosity +
Employment +
Volunteer hours +
Scale: perceptions of the Internet Effective and efficient, safe, trustworthy +
Scale: characteristics of the website Confidence in Internet, technology, accessibility, ease of navigation +
Scale: perceptions of the donating platform Reputation, feedback, information, trustworthiness +
Scale: influenced to give Friends, colleagues, family, religion +
Socio-demographics: (controls) Age
Gender
Urban/rural

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Understanding online donor behavior
village). Furthermore, the donors also receive
updates and feedback about who was helped and
how their donation money was used. This feedback
enhances credibility and promotes transparency.
GiveIndia undertakes an extensive screening pro-
cess to determine the legitimacy of the organizations
they are affiliated with in order to reassure donors
that the organization is doing the type of work they
claim. GiveIndia scrutinizes organizations’ annual
reports and financial records, and performs audits as
well as periodic site visits to ensure that the affiliated
NGO is legitimate, efficient, and not corrupt (please
see http://www.giveindia.org/t-certified.aspx for
further information). The organizations that people
support through GiveIndia are community based
organizations within India that address issues and
challenges in their specific local communities.
Methods
The research followed a cross-sectional design using
an online questionnaire instrument developed by
the investigators based on an extensive appraisal
and analysis of current literature on donating
behavior. It required 8–10 min to complete. The
study followed a simple implementation plan.
Personnel from GiveIndia posted the link to the
questionnaire on a page of their website that was
accessible to donors before and after they donated.
Data was collected over 6 months and then analyzed.
This research received ethics certification for human
subject research from University of Pennsylvania’s
Institutional Review Board.
Sampling and recruitment
The target population includes all people between
November 2010 and April 2011 that visited the
GiveIndia web-based program. During this time-
frame, approximately 500 000 people visited the
website, and around 5000 people donated through
the online program. The link to the survey was
made available on GiveIndia’s webpage, and for
those that chose to donate money, it was made avail-
able again on an internally generated GiveIndia
webpage that thanked donors for their donation.
At this time, a short note was added, which pointed
them to the survey and requested their
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
223
participation. By clicking a provided web link, the
donors were taken to the online survey where more
information was available. The only inclusion crite-
rion for participation in the study was that the
participant visited the GiveIndia website.
Data collection
Data was collected by using the online survey
program SurveyMonkey.com. There was no contact
between the research participants and the research-
ers. GiveIndia sent three reminder notifications on
behalf of the researchers to those participants who
had recently donated money.
Instrument
No standardized instruments or measures exist to
measure willingness to donate online. As a result,
this research is primarily exploratory. Item use and
wording were examined in other studies conducted
about donating behavior and informed our item
selection and creation (Bennett, 2003, 2009; Hall
et al., 2009). The dependent variable—a person’s
willingness to donate online—was operationalized
as a two-category variable with “yes” indicating that
they donated money through GiveIndia within the
last 12 months, and “no” indicating that they did
not donate money through GiveIndia within the last
12 months. The independent variables in this analy-
sis include the following: (1) donor characteristics;
(2) perceptions of the Internet; (3) characteristics
of the website; (4) perceptions of GiveIndia; (5)
influence of others; and (6) socio-demographics.
An additional variable measuring the extent to
which participants were engaged with a particular
organization supported through GiveIndia’s pro-
gram was considered. However, the results of the
factor analysis (i.e., principal factor analysis, Promax
(k = 2) solution) conducted on these measures, only
four viable factors could be retained, as discussed
later. The items used for this omitted fifth variable
were not considered reliable or valid.
The variable perceptions of the Internet was mea-
sured by a combined score on three items measured
with a 5-point Likert scale, including: “online donat-
ing is effective and efficient”, “the Internet is a safe
way to make money transfers”, and “I trust the
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
224
Internet technology”. The variable characteristics
of the website was also measured by using a 5-point
Likert scale. It included three items (i.e., “the web-
site was easy to navigate”, “the website was trust-
worthy”, and “the website was clear and concise”).
The variable perceptions of GiveIndia included a
combined score on five items: “GiveIndia has a good
reputation”, “I get good feedback (from GiveIndia)
on what my donation has achieved”, “I get informa-
tion (from GiveIndia) about the organization I
donated to”, “I get to choose where my money
goes”, and “I trust GiveIndia that the money is sent”.
All these were also measured on a 5-point Likert
scale asking individuals the level of agreement with
these statements (ranging from strongly agree to
strongly disagree).
The variable influence from others was operatio-
nalized by a combined score on four items, each
measured with a 5-point Likert scale (ranging from
strongly agree to strongly disagree). The items
included: “I was asked to donate”, “The website
was recommended to me by friends or family”,
“my coworkers or other colleagues donate”, and “I
have religious obligations to donate”.
Finally, socio-demographic variables (control vari-
ables and donor characteristics) were operationa-
lized by multiple choice responses of gender
(coded 1 for female and 0 for male), age (a continu-
ous variable with respondents’ self-reported age at
the time of completing the survey), community size
of residence (a four-category variable with village,
small city, medium city, and big city), extent of reli-
giosity (a three-category variable with not-religious,
moderately religious, and religious), income level
(a four-category variable with poor/low income,
middle income, moderately wealthy, and wealthy),
education level (a three-category variable with some
college or less, undergraduate degree, or graduate
degree), employment status (coded 1 for working
and 0 for not working), and number of hours volun-
teered in the past 12 months (a seven-category vari-
able with 0, 1–20, 21–40, 41–60, 61–80, 81–100,
and >100 h of volunteering).
Data analysis
To examine what factors predicted an individual’s
willingness to donate online through the GiveIndia
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Micheal L. Shier and Femida Handy
program, logistic regression analysis was performed
with the dependent variable—“yes” donated online
or “no” did not donate online—and with the 12
independent variables: donor characteristics (religi-
osity, income, education, employment, and number
of hours volunteered) perception of Internet,
perceptions of GiveIndia, characteristics of website,
influence from others, and socio demographic
controls (gender, age, and community size). Results
were computed with the STATA-11 (StataCorp,
College Station, TX, USA) software program.
Results
Descriptive statistics
In total, 738 surveys were collected, but due to non-
response on some of the items, 479 were utilized in
the analysis. Of the respondents included in the
analysis, 361 (75.37%) were male and 118 (24.63%)
were female. In the total sample for which data
were available (n = 653), 74.12% were male and
25.88% were female. The average age of participants
was 32.4 years (SD = 8.17) [in the total sample that
data is available (n = 593), average age is 32.8 years].
Post hoc analysis shows this difference is not signif-
icant. In total, 122 (25.47%) participants reported
not donating money online through GiveIndia’s pro-
gram within the last 12 months, and 357 (74.53%)
reported that they did donate money through
the GiveIndia program during the last 12 months.
Table 2 provides a breakdown of the frequency of
participants in each category of the donor character-
istics and socio-demographic control variables along
with the means and standard deviations.
Based on the results in Table 2, it is apparent that
the participants in this study, on average, lived in
larger cities, were of middle income and moderately
religious, tended to have completed post-secondary
education, were employed, and volunteered 1–20 h
a year. In comparison with the portion of the sample
with missing data, the means and standard deviations
of these variables were the same for community size,
education level, employment, and number of hours
volunteered. For the variables income and religiosity,
the means between the two sample sizes differed by
approximately 0.5. Suggesting that, on average, the
full sample was slightly more religious and had
slightly higher incomes. Post hoc analysis however,
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Understanding online donor behavior 225

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of participants: age, community participants is representative of those individuals that
size, religiosity, income, education, employment, and number
of hours volunteered tend to donate money online.
Table 3 describes the means, standard deviations,
Variable (code value) Frequency (%) Mean (SD) and reliability coefficients of the predictor factors
(see Methods section for details about these factors).
Gender The results for the means and standard deviations in
Male 360 (75.37) Table 3 show that participants on average responded
Female 118 (24.63) positively towards the items relating to perception
Age 11 (2.3) 32.42 (8.17)
Community size 2.63 (0.66) about the internet, characteristics of the website, and
Village (0) 17 (3.55) the perception of the GiveIndia program. Table 3 also
Small city (1) 108 (22.55) shows the values for the internal consistency and
Medium city (2) 343 (71.61)
Big city (3) 110 (22.96) average variance explained for each factor.
Religiosity 0.99 (0.67)
Not religious (0) 262 (54.7)
Moderately religious (1) 107 (22.34) Logistic regression
Religious (2)
Income 1.24 (0.58) Next, we perform logistic regression generating two
Poor/Low income (0) 20 (4.18) models to see if the proclivity of donating is influ-
Middle income (1) 338 (70.56)
Moderately wealthy (2) 105 (21.92)
enced by our predictor variables when controlling
Wealthy (3) 16 (3.34) for socio-demographic variables (i.e., donor charac-
Education 1.52 (0.59) teristics and controls). The results of the logistic
Some college or less (0) 23 (4.8) regression analyses are presented in Table 4, with
Undergraduate degree (1) 184 (38.41)
Graduate degree (2) 272 (56.78) the first model showing the effect of each socio-
Employment demographic variable on willingness to donate
Not working (0) 43 (8.98) online and the second model showing the effect of
Working (1) 436 (91.02)
Hours volunteered 1.15 (1.90) all the predictor variables. These results indicate that
(last 12 months) both models are significant in predicting the indivi-
Zero (0) 283 (59.08) dual’s willingness to donate online (Δw2(8) = 31.38,
1–20 (1) 83 (17.33)
21–40 (2) 33 (6.89)
p < 0.0001 and Δw2(12) = 105.49, p < 0.0001).
41–60 (3) 17 (3.55) As shown in Table 4, only three of the variables
61–80 (4) 8 (1.67) used in each model were statistically significant in
81–100 (5) 9 (1.88) predicting whether or not an individual was willing
More than 100 (6) 46 (9.60)
to donate money through the GiveIndia program.
With the first model, the results show that the odds
of someone donating money online through the
shows that this difference is not significant. Although GiveIndia program is 0.60 times less for female indi-
the sample included in the analysis is representative viduals than for male individuals, after controlling
of the individuals that completed the survey with for the other variables in the model. With regard
missing data, further research is warranted to deter- to the employment variable, the odds of someone
mine the extent to which this description of donating money online through the GiveIndia

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for predictor variables

Variable Mean Standard deviation Alpha Cronbach Average variance explained

Perception of Internet 3.67 1.27 0.90 0.87

Characteristics of website 3.84 1.32 0.91 0.88
Perceptions of GiveIndia 3.93 1.27 0.93 0.94
Influence from others 2.47 1.00 0.75 0.73

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
226 Micheal L. Shier and Femida Handy

Table 4. Logistic regression: dependent variable: willingness to donating behavior or if certain gender-based socio-
donate online
cultural factors—such as access to resources, inter-
Model 1 Model 2
personal interaction within families, and others—
contribute to online donating behavior.
Exp (B) Exp (B)
As might be expected, the results show a positive,
significant relationship between people’s percep-
Female 0.60* 0.55*
tions of GiveIndia and their willingness to donate
Age 1.00 1.01 money online. For these participants, a one-unit in-
Religiosity 1.19 1.13 crease in the measure of people’s attitudes towards
Community size 1.30 1.29 GiveIndia results in a 70-% increase in the odds that
Income 1.16 1.05
Education 1.00 1.10 they donated money online through the GiveIndia
Employment 2.60* 2.34 program. People who perceived the organization
Hours volunteered .85** .92 more positively were more likely to donate money
Perception of internet 1.31
Characteristics of website 1.14 online.
Perceptions of GiveIndia 1.70** With regard to the influence from others on indi-
Influence from others .72* vidual donating behavior, the results show that each
Chi-square, (DOF) 31.38***, 8 105.49***, 12
one-unit increase on the measure of extent of influ-
***p < 0.0001.
ence from others results in a 28-% decrease (in
**p < 0.01. Model 2) in the odds of donating money online
*p < 0.05. through the GiveIndia program. This means that
those participants who are less likely to be influ-
program is 2.6 times greater for employed people enced by others on their donating behavior were
than for unemployed people. Also, the results from more likely to donate money online through the
Model 1 show that an increase of one unit on the GiveIndia program. This finding, along with the
number of hours volunteered results in a 15-% significant negative relationship between hours
decrease in the odds that they donated money online volunteered and donating online found in Model 1
through GiveIndia. People who volunteered more of casts some doubt on the role of social propensity
their time were less likely to donate money online. in predicting online donating behavior.
In Model 2, the predictor variables found to be Surprisingly, none of the variables relating specif-
significant were gender, perceptions of the GiveIn- ically to perceptions about the website or the Inter-
dia program, and influence from others. The effect net were found to be statistically significant in
of employment and number of hours volunteered predicting people’s willingness to donate through
became insignificant after introducing the four GiveIndia.
other predictor variables into the model.
For the gender variable (in Model 2), the results
show that the odds of someone donating money
Discussion and conclusion
online through the GiveIndia program is 0.55 times
less for female individuals than for male individuals, In the past decade, the Internet has changed many
after controlling for the other variables in the relationships, whether it is among individuals, non-
model. This gender disparity replicates some earlier profits, businesses or government, and to all combi-
findings about gender and Internet use in India. For nations between these actors. Nonprofits doing
instance, Singh (2001) found that women and men fund-raising have used (and continue to use) labor-
use the Internet relatively equally in the USA and intensive processes of soliciting donations for their
Australia, but in India, Japan, and China, men utilize cause, such as cold calling, door-to-door collections,
the internet more than women. Although the Singh direct-mail, and local fund-raisers. Now, nonprofits
(2001) study was conducted over 10 years ago, this can reach millions through the Internet, which has
gendered division in internet use might still remain. become ubiquitous worldwide. This research inves-
Further research is necessary to determine if certain tigated what the leading constructs are in determin-
gender specific factors contribute to online ing whether or not an individual donates money

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
Understanding online donor behavior
online in comparison with what is understood to
predict offline donating behavior.
In response to the hypotheses raised in the litera-
ture review section of this paper, we found that cer-
tain key aspects relating to capacity and inclination
that contribute to an individual’s willingness to do-
nate were influential in some ways in determining
whether or not an individual donated online. For
instance, we found that employment and number
of hours volunteering per annum predicted online
donating behavior in the first model. Although,
these effects became insignificant when adding the
perception based variables into the model. Also,
because of the negatively significant relationship
between a person’s influence from social networks
and online donating, the extent to which social
propensity impacts online donating is inverse from
what was originally hypothesized (and widely
evidenced within the offline donating behavior
literature).
One explanation for this might be that individuals
who volunteer are more likely to donate to the orga-
nization for which they volunteer. Thus, it may well
be that individuals in our sample who volunteer may
also be donating, but they are not donating online. It
is reasonable to expect that they would donate
directly (offline) to the organizations they volunteer
for without going through a web-based donation
platform.
In terms of our four perception-based predictor
variables, only two were found to be significant.
An individual’s perception of GiveIndia was found
to be significant, as was influence from other people
(although in an inverse relationship than what
would have been expected). These results suggest
that characteristics of the website and perceptions
of the internet are not as important as have been
argued in current conceptual literature on online do-
nating (Hart, 2002; Holt and Horn, 2005; Marx, 2000).
This begets the question: why are these things not
important? Of course, it seems reasonable to assume
that a website with appealing characteristics to
donors would influence whether or not an individual
donated money while visiting that website. However,
based on the results here, it is likely to be a contribut-
ing factor towards improving perceptions of trust,
but not a leading factor in determining whether or
not an individual actually donates money. This result
could be because of the self-selection bias among
Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
227
those who visit the website. These individuals are
likely to be more confident in the Internet and are
more able to navigate the website (than might be
expected within the general population). Thus,
neither trust in the Internet nor the characteristics
of the website influence the respondent’s likelihood
to give. Donating (or not donating) could simply be
a function of finding (or not finding) the right cause
or organization to give to. Our results however do
indicate that trust with the particular donation
platform, GiveIndia in this case, is a more influential
aspect of willingness to donate online.
The finding that individuals were less likely to
donate online if they were more influenced by
others seems counterintuitive. Here, it might be that
those who were influenced to give by family,
friends, coworkers, and others, may have given
offline in direct response to a request to participate
in something specific. There was perhaps no need
to use a web-based platform to donate. Further-
more, if individuals were influenced to give for reli-
gious reasons, it is most likely they donated directly
to their place of worship, and were thus less likely
to give online.
As discussed previously, it has been found that in-
fluence from within social networks contributes to
an individual’s willingness to donate offline (Doob
and McLaughlin, 1989; Heitzmann et al., 2009),
but for participants in this study, the results show
that such influences are not significant in positively
predicting online donating behavior. Thus, this find-
ing suggests that those factors that influence offline
giving cannot be readily applied to online giving.
Online activity often tends to be a very individual
and private activity and hence has no visibility to the
donor’s social networks. Offline donations, on the
contrary, can often put the fund-raiser and donor
in contact, and hence, donors are more susceptible
to personal influence and networks; for example,
raising money from friends to sponsor a run for a
charitable purpose, doing team fund-raising through
a social club or at work, and others. The effect of the
Internet on donor behavior might require more in-
depth research to uncover factors hitherto not
considered in offline donor research.
Some key questions emerge, which might help in
developing an improved understanding of online
donating and provide strategies for organizations to
target individuals. These include the following:
Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., August 2012
DOI: 10.1002/nvsm
228
how do online donors come to websites to donate
in the first place?—Is it a search function, word of
mouth, or information in fund-raising by the NGOs
represented by the donor platform; and what
contributes to their willingness to engage with
online donation programs? What advantages and dis-
advantages do online platforms provide donors?
Answers to questions along these lines might pro-
vide insights on how to increase an organization’s
donor base or raise awareness about its online
fund-raising campaigns.
Currently, our findings do lend some support to the
use of online donating platforms for smaller organiza-
tions that are not easily recognized by the public or
lack credibility. Because perceptions of the online
platform contributed greatly to whether or not an in-
dividual donated online, smaller lesser-known organi-
zations could benefit by joining well-known online
fund-raising platforms that have earned donor trust
and legitimacy. Their participation in larger online
platforms will likely have a greater impact on the suc-
cess of their online campaigns than if they were seek-
ing online donations on their own. This finding also
suggests that success of online platforms in raising
money is contingent on donor perspectives of their
program and organization—including aspects of
trust, reputation, and transparency.
One of the primary limitations of this research is
that it focuses only on the reasons why people do-
nated online and does not include an understanding
of why people do not donate online. Further re-
search could usefully investigate the personal types
of reasons why people donate to one charity or or-
ganization over another. The results from this analy-
sis definitely support this need, as it is clear that the
reasons why people donate online might have more
to do with individual influences and interests.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dhaval Udani and the other
personnel from GiveIndia whose support made this
research possible.
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