International Journal of Strategic Communication

ISSN: 1553-118X (Print) 1553-1198 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hstc20

Using Mobile Donation to Promote International

Fundraising: A Situational Technology Acceptance
Model

Yue Zheng

To cite this article: Yue Zheng (2020): Using Mobile Donation to Promote International
Fundraising: A Situational Technology Acceptance Model, International Journal of Strategic
Communication, DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2020.1720026

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2020.1720026

Published online: 16 Mar 2020.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2020.1720026

Using Mobile Donation to Promote International Fundraising: A

Situational Technology Acceptance Model
Yue Zheng
Department of Journalism, California State University, Northridge, USA

ABSTRACT
As donation through mobile devices becomes globally available, this study
aims to promote its adoption and facilitate international fundraising, primarily
by examining people’s motivations to make a mobile donation – a donation
made by text message. Employing key variables from the situational theory of
problem solving and the technology acceptance model, this study proposes an
emerging Situational Technology Acceptance Model (STAM). A nationwide
survey of 994 American respondents in Spring 2016 and a two-step structural
equation modeling process empirically supported STAM. By digging into the
nuances of people’s situational motivations to solve a problem and their
attitudes toward using a new technology, STAM found that the respondents’
donation intentions were more associated with their technological attitudes.
Finally, this study uses awareness of mobile donation and mobile donation
intention as two dimensions to segment mobile phone users to active, aware,
latent, and non-publics, and offers practical advice for nonprofits to better
target their fundraising efforts.

Introduction
In 2017, 8,453 nonprofit organizations in the U.S. raised a total of $29.7 billion, 4.1% more than
the year before. Among the various nonprofits categorized by National Taxonomy of Exempt
Entities, nonprofits benefiting international affairs reported the biggest growth at a rate of 19.2%
in their overall fundraising (Blackbaud Institute, 2018a). A recent survey with 6,057 donors across
119 countries and six continents also found that 31% of donors had some experience donating to
charities located outside of their country of residence (Nonprofit Tech For Good, 2018a).
As donors become increasingly interested in making donations to help address international issues, it
is important for nonprofits to think about how to better conduct fundraising in foreign countries.
Apparently, fundraising technology works more effectively than the traditional method of collecting
cash or check, since it can overcome barriers of time, geography, and currency. Technologies such as
websites, social media, email, and smartphone apps are often employed to implement the fundraising
process (Nonprofit Tech For Good, 2018b); however, these technologies might not work very well for
campaigns executed in different countries. Most of these technologies consume a lot of Internet or mobile
data, but the global average Internet penetration rate was just above 50 percent as of 2019 (Statista, 2019a),
which means a large number of international donors have limited or expensive Internet access. Even in
some counties where the Internet is readily available, international donors might use different formats for
a particular media outlet in their own countries. For example, WeChat, Line, Telegram, and KakaoTalk
are more popular in Asia than Facebook Messenger, although all of them are based on Facebook’s original
texting app and have similar functions but in different languages (Schwartz, 2016). This difference in
Internet penetration and technology adoption makes it difficult to execute the same fundraising campaign

CONTACT Yue Zheng Yue.zheng@csun.edu Department of Journalism, California, State University, Northridge, 18111
Nordhoff Street, Manzanita Hall, 329, Northridge, CA 91330-8311, USA
© 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 Y. ZHENG

in different countries. Therefore, nonprofits should seek an approach that works effectively and consis-
tently with donors across different countries, as well as technology that would support this.
Mobile donation seems an ideal solution for international fundraising: People can give monetary
donations to nonprofits by texting a keyword to a phone code, and the charges are then applied to
their phone bill (see Figure 1). In addition to its original name of mobile donation – “The term
mobile donation is defined as donation via text message” (Chen & Givens, 2013, p. 197) – nonprofit
organizations and scholars also call this type of donation as “text-to-give” (Nonprofits Source, 2018),
“text-to-donate” (MobileCause, 2018), “text giving,” or “mobile giving” (Double the Donation, 2019).
This study follows Chen and Givens’ (2013, p. 197) original definition and uses the term “mobile
donation” in referring to a donation made via a text message (Figure 1). Mobile donation thus differs
from a donation made through a mobile website, mobile application, social media page, mobile
phone call, or third-party application for crowdfunding or crowdsourcing.
Compared with other fundraising technologies, the mobile phone is more ubiquitous with a global
average penetration rate of 67.1% (Statista, 2019b). The text messaging function is provided by almost
all kinds of mobile phones, ranging from the second-generation mobile phone to the latest smart phone.
Research shows that about 99% of texts, once received, are read and replied within five minutes (Double
the Donation, 2019). Based on the text messaging function, mobile donation does not require people to
use any Wi-Fi service or mobile data, to access any webpage, to download any mobile app, to watch any
tutorial video to learn how to operate it, or to hurry to grab the credit card and then worry about the

Figure 1. Screenshot of mobile donation procedure.

 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 3

security of credit card information. All people need to do is type a couple of characters and then pay the
regular phone bill. The text messaging feature is also consistent across different countries without a lot
of local differences, which facilitates the execution of international fundraising campaigns.
Mobile donation thus has been employed by international nonprofits in support of their chari-
table fundraising: To support the Haiti earthquake rescue in 2010, the American Red Cross
distributed a mobile donation campaign that attracted four million American donors who contrib-
uted more than $40 million (Chen & Givens, 2013). After the Haiti rescue, more than half of the
Haiti donors have also made mobile donations to support other issues (Nonprofits Source, 2018). On
August 24, 2013, March of Dimes and some other nonprofits partnered with Macy’s to conduct
a mobile campaign in Macy’s annual “Shop for a Cause” day, which raised more than $3.8 million
within a single day to benefit infant health charities (Macy’s, 2013).
Even though nonprofits have developed several successful mobile campaigns like “Hope for Haiti
Now” and “Shop for a Cause,” as of 2018, only 1% of donors worldwide preferred donating via text
message, whose percentage was significantly lower than many other online donation methods such
as donating via websites, PayPal, or mobile applications (Nonprofits Source, 2018; Nonprofit Tech
For Good, 2018a). While the average donation size of mobile donation increased 3.4% yearly from
2017 (MobileCause, 2018), mobile donation only accounted for up to 8% of the total donations made
by Americans in 2010 to 2018 (Blackbaud Institute, 2018b). Also, a survey with 5,352 worldwide
nonprofits showed that, by 2018, only 43% of those nonprofits had ever used mobile donation to
collect funds (Nonprofit Tech For Good, 2018b). These statistics together show that mobile donation
has not been used widely by worldwide donors, which makes it critically important for nonprofits to
use social science theories to explore the motivations behind mobile donation behaviors and then
encourage people to start using this technology to support international fundraising campaigns.
The technology acceptance model (TAM) is employed extensively across disciplines to explain
why and how people determine to adopt a new technology (Davis, 1993; Lee, Kozar, & Larsen, 2003;
Legris, Ingham, & Collerette, 2003; Zheng, Wei, & Nekmat, 2016). Besides the motivation to use
a new technology, making a mobile donation also requires a motivation to communicate and solve
a social problem. To explain “why publics communicate and when they are most likely to commu-
nicate” a social issue, the situational theory of publics is well known for its effectiveness in predicting
various communication behaviors (J. E. Grunig, 1997, p. 7). Kim and J. E. Grunig (2011) later
extended this theory to “situational theory of problem solving (STOPS).”
However, current literature on mobile donation has only examined either the motivations to use
mobile donation as a general new technology (Weberling & Waters, 2012), or the motivations to
address the issues supported by a mobile campaign (Weberling, Waters, & Tindall, 2012). No
research so far explores both motivations for using a technology and solving a social problem. To
fill this gap, this study employed key variables from both TAM and STOPS and proposed
a preliminary “situational technology acceptance model (STAM),” which was expected to provide
more theoretical explanations than either of the theories alone. This study then used a national
survey distributed via Amazon MTurk to test the proposed model in the U.S., where mobile
donation was piloted for the first time in the 2008 Super Bowl via a 10-second mobile campaign
supporting United Way’s youth fitness program. This study also explors how the empirical findings
might help contribute practical implications for nonprofit organizations to better segment mobile
phone users, design messaging strategies, and implement future worldwide fundraising campaigns.

Literature review
Technology acceptance model (TAM)
The technology acceptance model is a leading theory in management of information systems for its
effectiveness in explaining people’s motivations to accept and use a new technology (Lee et al., 2003;
Legris et al., 2003; Zheng et al., 2016). The premise of TAM is that an individual’s actual behavior is based
4 Y. ZHENG

on his or her behavioral intention (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989). Weberling and Waters (2012)
employed TAM to study the “Hope for Haiti Now” mobile campaign and have confirmed the significant
correlation between people’s mobile donation intentions and their actual mobile donation behaviors.
To predict intention to use a new technology, TAM identifies two independent variables: perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness refers to “the degree to which a person believes
that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance” (Davis, 1986, p. 26). For
instance, people may intend to use mobile Internet in the belief that it will somehow benefit their job
(Huang, Lin, & Chuang, 2007; Kim & Garrison, 2009); students may tend to use mobile devices in their
coursework, considering it might boost their future career (Cheon, Lee, Crooks, & Song, 2012); and
tourists may want to use mobile devices in an attempt to improve their travel experience (Kim, Park, &
Morrison, 2008). Weberling and Waters (2012) found that American Red Cross donors used mobile
donations because they felt that the technology performed more effectively than traditional donation
methods, such as dropping cash, mailing a check, or providing credit card information.
Perceived ease of use is defined as “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular
system would be free of physical and mental effort” (Davis, 1986, p. 26). Easy-to-use technology
usually gives users a greater sense of efficacy, confidence and control, therefore, people tend to adopt
it. In some instances, perceived usefulness has more influence than perceived ease of use in
predicting the intention to use a technology, which means that people may be willing to overcome
the difficulty of learning and using a technology if it provides critically important benefits to their
jobs or lives (e.g., Davis, 1993; Kim & Garrison, 2009).
The TAM also includes attitude toward using a technology as a mediator connecting behavior
intention and perceived usefulness/perceived ease of use. Attitude is defined as “the degree of
evaluative affect that an individual associates with using the target system” (Davis, 1986, p. 25).
While attitude reported a partial mediating effect in the original research (Davis, 1993), recent TAM
studies on mobile technology have not proposed a path from perceived usefulness or perceived ease
of use to behavior intention (e.g., Cheon et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2008; Lule, Omwansa, & Waema,
2012), perhaps because this kind of direct effect was smaller than the indirect effect mediated by
attitude in some cases (e.g., Cheong & Park, 2005; Huang et al., 2007).
As one of the only studies to apply TAM to mobile donations, Weberling and Waters (2012)
confirmed the positive relationships among perceived usefulness, attitude, and mobile donation
intention, while indicating a non-significant association between perceived ease of use and attitude.
The authors attributed this to the small sample size (179 donors) and examination of only a single
mobile campaign. The effect of perceived ease of use is thus unknown in a more representative
sample and for multiple mobile donation cases. Following the traditional TAM and massive
literature (e.g., Davis, 1993; Legris et al., 2003), this study hypothesizs the positive relationship
between perceived ease of use and attitude toward using technology:

H1a: There will be a positive relationship between perceived usefulness and attitude toward using
mobile donation technology.

H1b: There will a positive relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude toward using
mobile donation technology.

H2: There will be a positive relationship between attitude toward using mobile donation technology
and intentions to make a mobile donation.

Mobile communications scholars have also extended TAM by considering an additional inde-
pendent variable – perceived credibility, defined as the extent to which a person believes that the use
of a given mobile technology will pose no security or privacy threats (Luarn & Lin, 2005, p. 880).
Although mobile donations do not require people’s credit card information, people may still feel
some concerns whether the payment is really a one-time charge or will be charged repeatedly,
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 5

requiring additional efforts to cancel. Prior studies have proved that perceived credibility positively
influences people’s attitudes toward using technologies that require mobile payments (Wang, Wang,
Lin, & Tang, 2003). In the case of mobile banking, perceived credibility was even more powerful in
predicting people’s attitudes and behavior intentions, than the traditional TAM independent vari-
ables of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Luarn & Lin, 2005; Lule et al., 2012).

H1c: There will be a positive relationship between perceived credibility and attitude toward using
mobile donation technology.

Situational theory of problem solving (STOPS)

Situational theory of problem solving originates from the situational theory of publics, which employs
three independent variables – problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recogni-
tion – to predict the dependent variable – information seeking and information processing behaviors
(Aldoory & Sha, 2007; J. E. Grunig, 1997). Information seeking, which means “the planned scanning of
the environment for messages about a specified topic,” is considered an active communication behavior;
and information processing, which means “the unplanned discovery of a message followed by continued
processing of it,” is considered as a passive communication behavior (J. E. Grunig, 1997, p. 9).
Regarding the independent variables, problem recognition means “one’s perception that some-
thing is missing and that there is no immediately applicable solution to it” (Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011,
p. 128). Constraint recognition means “people perceive that there are obstacles in a situation that
limit their ability to do anything about the situation” (J. E. Grunig, 1997, p. 10). Involvement
recognition refers to “the extent to which people connect themselves with a situation” (J. E.
Grunig, 1997, p. 10). In general, problem and involvement recognition have a positive relationship
with information seeking and processing, while constraint recognition has a negative relationship
with information seeking and processing and other independent variables. That is because people are
more likely to seek and process information about an issue if they feel that the issue is somewhat
serious, relates to their personal lives, and is easy to solve without many barriers.
Situational theory of publics has been employed to examine how and why American Red Cross
donors responded to “Hope for Haiti Now” (Weberling et al., 2012). This study found involvement
recognition was the strongest predictor of information seeking and processing behaviors, compared
with the other two independent variables. Another couple of studies explored publics’ information
activities about national athletic fundraising events and found the influences of problem, constraint,
and involvement recognitions actually varied across different campaigns (McKeever, 2013;
McKeever, Pressgrove, McKeever, & Zheng, 2016; Zheng & McKeever, 2016).
The media environment nowadays, however, is very different from the pre-social-media age.
Besides seeking and processing information, people can also filter, edit, and repost the information
on their social media pages for different purposes. Kim and J. E. Grunig (2011) thus advanced the
original situational theory of publics into a new model, called the situational theory of problem
solving (STOPS). The STOPS primarily re-conceptualizes the information seeking and processing
behavior to a more holistic “communicative action” as the dependent variable (Kim, J. E. Grunig, &
Ni, 2010). The rationale is that information seeking and processing can only gather information for
individual purposes rather than solving a problem at a societal level. To deal with a social problem,
publics should also filter out useless information and share helpful information with others who face
the common problem. Through acquiring, selecting, and sharing information with each other,
publics can collaborate to mobilize resources and eventually eliminate a social problem.
Specifically, communicative actions include information acquisition, information selection, and
information transmission (Kim et al., 2010). Each of these three information domains then includes
one proactive and one reactive sub-dimension. Information acquisition includes proactive information
seeking and reactive information attending (what used to be called information processing).
6 Y. ZHENG

Information selection includes proactive information forefending (“to fend off certain information by
judging its value and relevance in advance in a given problem solving task”) and reactive information
permitting (“to permit any information if it is related to a given problem-solving task:”: Kim et al., 2010,
p. 138). Information transmission includes proactive information forwarding (“forward information
about a problem even if no one solicits it”) and reactive information sharing (“share information only
when someone else requests his or her expertise in problem solving:” Kim et al., 2010, p. 139).
To mediate the relationship between independent variables and the communicative actions,
STOPS also adds a mediator of “situational motivation in problem solving,” which refers to when
“people detect that something should be done about a situation and stop to think about what to do”
(J. E. Grunig, 1997, p. 10).
The STOPS has been used to predict the communicative actions related to various social issues
such as the Iraq war, weight loss, affirmative action (Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011), U.S. beef imports in
Taiwan (Chen, Hung-Baesecke, & Kim, 2017) and South Korea (Kim, Ni, Kim, & Kim, 2012), and
organ donation (Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011; Kim, Shen, & Morgan, 2011). However, STOPS has not
been used to test mobile donation behaviors. It is thus unknown whether STOPS will work as
effectively as its original theory to predict communicative actions on technology-based fundraising
cases. Based on the above literature, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H3a: There will be a positive relationship between problem recognition and the situational motiva-
tion in solving the problem that nonprofits aim to support.

H3b: There will be a negative relationship between constraint recognition and the situational
motivation in solving the problem that nonprofits aim to support.

H3c: There will be a positive relationship between involvement recognition and the situational
motivation in solving the problem that nonprofits aim to support.

H4: There will be a positive relationship between the situational motivation in solving the problem
that nonprofits aim to support and communicative actions related to the problem.

Proposed situational technology acceptance model (STAM)

To examine both motivations – motivations to use a new technology and motivations to solve
a social problem, this study combines key variables of STOPS and TAM and proposes an emerging
“situational technology acceptance model (STAM).” For STOPS, this study considers the commu-
nicative actions’ further influence on the behavior intentions. Traditional situational theory of
publics found that the people active in seeking and processing information related to a specific
social issue, such as the environment or bioterrorism, are more likely to further support that issue by
joining environment activist groups (J. E. Grunig, 1989) or preparing an emergency supply kit for
unexpected bioterrorist attacks (Lee & Rodriguez, 2008). Also, some nonprofit scholars have con-
firmed that individuals’ communicative actions on philanthropic events could predict their beha-
vioral intentions to make a mobile donation (Weberling et al., 2012) or participate in athletic
fundraising events (McKeever, 2013; McKeever et al., 2016).

H5: There will be a positive relationship between communicative actions and intention to make
a mobile donation.

For TAM, this study adds communicative actions as a mediator connecting attitude towards using
technology and intentions to make a mobile donation. That is because the more positive the attitudes
toward a fundraising event, the more likely people will seek, process, and share information related
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 7

to that event. In fact, this was supported by a campus survey with 514 students (McKeever, 2013)
and by a national survey with 1,539 Americans (McKeever et al., 2016) about their behaviors
supporting athletic fundraising events.
However, the attitudes measured in both studies (McKeever, 2013; McKeever et al., 2016) were
based on attitudes toward the athletic fundraising events, rather than the attitudes toward using any
particular technologies; and the athletic fundraising events usually required donors to participate in
physical activities such as relay running or walking, instead of using a media technology. It is thus
unknown whether attitudes toward using a new technology would work as effectively as attitudes
toward an athletic fundraising event to predict individuals’ communicative actions on fundraising-
related events.

RQ1: What is the relationship between attitudes toward using mobile donation technology and
communicative actions related to the problems that nonprofits aim to support?

Figure 2 shows the proposed model with all hypotheses and the research question. In short, the
situational technology acceptance model (STAM) assumes that when confronting a technology-
based situation such as mobile donations, individuals tend to have thoughts about the technology as
well as about the situation/social issue. The technology cognitions then evolve to the affective
attitudes towards using the technology, and the situational cognitions then evolve to the motivations
to deal with the situation. In the next step, the technological attitudes and situational motivations
work together to influence people’s supportive behaviors. The eventual behavioral intentions to
make a mobile donation will be mediated by communicative actions. By digging into the nuances of
people’s motivations, STAM is also expected to provide practical implications for nonprofit
practitioners.

Methods
To test the hypotheses and answer the research question, this study conducted an online survey
using Qualtrics. The questionnaire was approved by IRB before data collection began.

Figure 2. Proposed situational technology acceptance model.

8 Y. ZHENG

Survey procedure
This study employed Amazon MTurk (AMT) to recruit online workers, at least 18-year-old
Americans, to complete the survey. The respondents recruited via AMT were proved to be more
representative of the U.S. population than student samples, in-person convenient samples, or online
surveys posted on social media (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012; Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling,
2011; Casler, Bickel, & Hackett, 2013; Ross, Irani, Silberman, Zaldivar, & Tomlinson, 2010). Also,
researchers have to review and approve the accomplishment of tasks before workers receive
payment, which helps researchers identify and reject invalid responses. Workers’ approval ratings,
the percentage of the tasks approved among the tasks they finished in total, could help researchers
rule out the unreliable workers (Peer, Vosgerau, & Acquisti, 2014).
To begin data collection, the researcher posted the URL to the Qualtrics survey at AMT as a $1
task. The survey then started with a screening question to rule out respondents who do not own
a mobile phone with texting capability.

survey measures
At the beginning of the survey, respondents were shown a short description and a screenshot of
mobile donation (Figure 1), and were then asked “Have you ever heard of mobile donation (Yes/
No)?” and “Have you ever made any mobile donations (Yes/No)?” The mobile donors were asked to
think about the issue they donated toward in their last mobile donation experience and the non-
donors were asked to think about the issue they would like to donate toward by using mobile
donation. They were then asked to keep that issue in mind and were told that the “issue” mentioned
in the following questions referred to the issue in their mind.
The survey measurements were employed and revised from prior research, and all items were
measured using 7-point Likert-type scales that asked respondents the extent to which they agreed or
disagreed with the following items:
Problem recognition was measured by “This issue needs some sort of resolution;” “I believe
people need to pay more attention to this issue;” and “I consider this problem/issue to be serious”
(Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011).
Constraint recognition was measured by “Supporting this issue is too time-consuming;” “There
are many constraints in the way of supporting this issue;” and “It is not convenient to participate in
events to support this issue” (J. E. Grunig, 1997).
Involvement recognition was measured by “My life has been affected by this issue;” “I know many
people who have been affected by this issue;” and “This issue has serious consequences for my life
and/or for someone I care about” (J. E. Grunig, 1997).
Situational motivation in problem solving was measured “I often stop and think about this issue;”
“I often stop and think about what I can do to help with this issue;” and “I am very curious about
this issue” (Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011).
Communicative actions, as a second-order factor, were measured with three information activities:
information acquisition, information selection, and information transmission. Each information activity
was measured by six first-order factors. Information acquisition was measured by “If I saw something on
the news about the issue, I would click and read it;” “I pay attention to news reports about this issue;” “I
attend to news when people cover this issue;” “I actively search for information on the issue;” “I regularly
check to see if there is any new information about the issue;” and “I often request information about this
issue” (Chen et al., 2017; Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011; Kim et al., 2012).
Information selection was measured by “I am interested in all views on this issue;” “I have listened
to media reports on the issue even if I didn’t agree with them;” “I listen even to opposite views on
this issue;” “I can easily judge the value of information related to the issue;” “I have a selection of
trusted sources that I check for updates on the issue;” and “I know where to go when I need updated
information regarding this issue” (Chen et al., 2017; Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011; Kim et al., 2012).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 9

Information transmission was measured by “I talk about this issue when others bring up the
topic;” “I would be willing to talk to someone about this issue if they asked me;” “I would join in
a conversation when I hear people talking about this issue;” “I talk about this issue with my friends
and coworkers;” “I bring this issue to the attention of people I know;” and “I make sure that my
friends know about this issue” (Chen et al., 2017; Kim & J. E. Grunig, 2011; Kim et al., 2012).
Perceived usefulness was measured by “Mobile donation technology makes it easy to make
a monetary donation;” “Mobile donation technology is helpful to enhance the effectiveness of
making a monetary donation;” and “Mobile donations are useful” (Davis, 1989, 1993).
Perceived ease of use was measured by “The procedure of making a mobile donation is easy to
learn;” “The process of making a mobile donation is easy to operate;” and “It is easy for me to
remember how to make a mobile donation” (Cheon et al., 2012; Davis, 1989, 1993).
Perceived credibility was measured by “I am concerned that the charge of mobile donations will
reoccur in the future (reverse coded);” “I am concerned that my personal information will be
misused by making a mobile donation (reverse coded);” and “I am concerned that my payment
information will be misused by making a mobile donation (reverse coded)” (Luarn & Lin, 2005;
Wang et al., 2003).
Attitude was measured by “Generally, I am in favor of making mobile donations;” “I feel good
about making a mobile donation;” and “I think using mobile donation technology is beneficial”
(Cheong & Park, 2005; Davis, 1993; Venkatesh, Brown, & Hoehle, 2012).
Mobile donation intention was measured by “If this issue happens again, I intend to make
a mobile donation;” “If this issue happens again in the near future, I will likely make a mobile
donation;” and “To help deal with this issue, I would likely make a monetary donation by sending
a text” (Cheon et al., 2012; Cheong & Park, 2005). Finally, the survey asked respondents’
demographics.

Data collection and analysis

The researcher conducted a pretest with 77 undergraduate students and made minor adjustments on the
wordings and question orders. The official survey link was distributed on AMT in the middle of
February, 2016. SPSS was employed for data cleaning and preliminary analysis to identify invalid
responses, such as missing values or the same answers for different questions. AMOS was then used to
evaluate the overall fit of the structural equation model using maximum likelihood estimation. A model
is considered excellent when the CFI ≥ .95, NFI ≥ .95, and RMSEA ≤ .06 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Results
The survey initially received 1,033 responses from AMT. After ruling out the invalid responses, 994
valid responses eventually remained viable for data analysis. On average, the valid respondents spent
23 minutes and 5 seconds in filling out the questionnaire.
The sample included 46.18% female (n = 459) and 53.82% male participants (n = 535). About
73.34% participants were White Americans (n = 729), 11.97% were Asians (n = 119), 6.74% were
African Americans (n = 67), 5.53% were Hispanics (n = 55), and 2.41% selected “other” (n = 24). The
average age was about 33 years old (SD = 9.86). The annual household income was measured on an
8-point scale where 1 = less than US$20,000 and 8 = more than US$100,001, with the average being
US$40,001 to US$50,000 (M = 4.02, SD = 2.18). Level of education was measured on an 8-point scale
where 1 = less than high school and 8 = post-graduate degree or professional degree including
master’s, doctoral, or medical degree. The average level of education was “some college, no degree”
(M = 5.42, SD = 1.46).
To test the proposed STAM (Figure 2), this study conducted a two-step structural equation
modeling procedure (Kline, 1998). In the first step, a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to
check residuals and item loadings. The measurement model reported an excellent model fit: X2 df
10 Y. ZHENG

Figure 3. Situational technology acceptance model.

(509) = 1530.572, p < .001; CFI = .96; NFI = .94; RMSEA = .045. A set of reliability tests were also
measured for each latent variable: problem recognition (Cronbach’s α = .824), constraint recognition
(α = .782), involvement recognition (α = .868), situational motivation (α = .844), communicative
actions (α = .930), perceived usefulness (α = .870), perceived ease of use (α = .884), perceived
credibility (α = .895), attitude (α = .901), and mobile donation intention (α = .957).
In the second step, this study ran a full structural equation modeling (SEM) to test STAM in
Figure 2 and obtained an excellent model fit: X2 df (529) = 1601.01, p < .001; CFI = .96; NFI = .94;
RMSEA = .045. In total, the latent variables in STAM explained 51.6% of the variance in the
intentions to make a mobile donation.
Figure 3 shows that attitude toward using technology was predicted by perceived usefulness
(β = .79, p < .001; H1a supported), perceived ease of use (β = − .22, p < .001; H1b not supported),
and perceived credibility (β = .31, p < .001; H1c supported). Situational motivation was predicted by
program recognition (β = .44, p < .001; H3a supported), constraint recognition (β = − .07, p < .05;
H3b supported), and involvement recognition (β = .48, p < .001; H3c supported). Communicative
actions were predicted by attitude toward using technology (β = .15, p < .001; RQ1 answered) and
situational motivation (β = .77, p < .001; H4 supported). Intentions to make a mobile donation were
predicted by attitude toward using technology (β = .67, p < .001; H2 supported) and communicative
actions (β = .16, p < .001; H5 supported).

Discussion
Using a nationwide survey with 994 American respondents in Spring 2016, this study employed key
variables from the situational theory of problem solving and technology acceptance model to
examine people’s motivations to make a mobile donation. Theoretically, the study provided empiri-
cal support for an emerging situational technology acceptance model (STAM). Practically, this study
segmented publics by using awareness of mobile donation and intentions to make a mobile donation
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 11

as two dimensions, and suggested practical advice for nonprofits to improve future international
fundraising, by better motivating active, aware, latent, and non-publics respectively.

Theoretical contributions
Perhaps most importantly, this study proposed STAM and supported it empirically by a two-step
structural equation modeling. Regarding STOPS, this research added to existing research by extend-
ing the theory to consider communicative action’s further influence on donating intentions.
Regarding TAM, this study further developed the existing model by adding the antecedent of
perceived credibility and adding communicative actions as a mediator connecting the independent
variables to mobile donation intentions.
The STAM model (Figure 3) shows that the mobile donation intention was predicted strongest by
attitude toward using technology. In other words, when deciding whether to make a mobile dona-
tion, it seems mobile phone users care about the technology aspect of mobile donations more than
the issues their donations aim to support. Attitude toward using technology, as the primary factor
influencing donation intention, was mostly predicted by whether mobile phone users believe the
payment process is useful and secure.
Surprisingly, this study identified a negative relationship between perceived ease of use and attitude
toward using technology. A prior mobile donation study also indicated an insignificant relationship
between these two variables (Weberling & Waters, 2012). Therefore, the influence of perceived ease of
use on mobile donation technology is different than on many other technologies (Davis, 1986; Lee et al.,
2003; Legris et al., 2003). Perhaps mobile phone users believe mobile donations are just an advanced
version of texting instead of a new technology and, thus, do not get excited about using this technology.
This finding confirmed the conclusions made by prior TAM scholars (Lee et al., 2003; Legris et al.,
2003): Before applying the original TAM to study a new technology, it is necessary to develop the model
by adding or replacing some factors based on the nature of the technology.
Mobile phone users’ communicative actions were mostly predicted by the situational motivations
of problem solving, which was influenced most strongly by involvement recognition. Although
constraint recognition showed a significant coefficient as well, the impact was not that high
compared with involvement and problem recognitions. It could be that because this survey focused
on mobile donations (even though the constraint recognition items focused on the issue and not the
technology), there were few constraints in the minds of respondents related to mobile donations for
the issues that they cared about.
It should be noted that STAM does not replace either model of STOPS or TAM. The STOPS
works well to explain individuals’ motivations to solve certain problems, and the procedure of
problem solving does not necessarily involve the use of new technology. Similarly, TAM works well
to explain the use of a new technology, and the use of technology is not always done for the purpose
of solving problems. Instead, STAM works best to explain the use of a technology that aims to solve
specific problems, and could be used in future research to explore the effectiveness of using other
mobile technologies to raise funds or solve a specific problem.

Practical implications
Public relations scholars have suggested segmenting publics and then designing different messaging
tactics for different publics (J. E. Grunig & Hunt, 1984; Kim et al., 2011). This research followed
these scholars’ methods and developed a segmenting strategy by evaluating respondents’ awareness
of mobile donations and intentions to make a mobile donation as two key dimensions to segment
respondents into four groups: active, aware, latent, and non-public (Figure 4).
Active publics refer to “a self-identified and self-organized group of people that arises in response
to a problematic situation” (Kim et al., 2011, p. 175). In this research, active publics (n = 206,
20.72%) refer to people who answered “Yes” to the question: “Have you ever made any mobile
12 Y. ZHENG

Intentions to Make a Mobile Donation

Active Publics (20.72%)

Latent Publics (8.75%) Active• Public (20.72%)
Emphasize personal connections to the
• Incorporate more mobile donation • Emphasize thethey
issue(s) that personal connections
have not supportedto
ads in fundraising campaigns the issues that they never donated
previously
• toward before
Encourage active publics to help
• Mention
educate the potential
others about of a donor’s
mobile donations
• employer makingdonors
Reward mobile a matching
who gift
• Encourage
successfullyto help
referpublicize a mobile
another mobile
giving
phonecampaign and/or
user to make educate
a mobile others
donation
about mobile
or share donation
a mobile campaign on their
own social media pages

Awareness of Mobile Donation

Non-publics (7.95%) Aware Publics (62.58%)

• Not considered as primary target
audience for most campaigns
• Demonstrate the usefulness of mobile
donations
• Clarify the security of the payment
process
• Segment aware publics to high and low
attitude publics and target the high
attitude individuals/communities

Figure 4. Public segmentation and communication strategies to promote mobile donation.

donation?” Active publics have experience making a mobile donation and are familiar with the
donating procedure. There is no need to educate them about what mobile donation is or about how
to operate a mobile donation.
Instead, nonprofits should make every endeavor to conserve these active publics and encourage
their continued donations. Although there does not seem to be a way to donate more than one time
for the same campaign, mobile donors can donate toward multiple issues or campaigns. Therefore,
nonprofits could try motivating active publics to donate toward the issues to which they have not
donated before, by developing strategic messages to improve situational motivations to solve the
various issues. Giving the impact of involvement recognition on situational motivation (Figure 3),
messages and campaigns should primarily try to increase the active publics awareness of the issue
and also emphasize the active publics personal connections to the issue, including how their lives
have been affected by the issue and/or how their lives would improve once the issue is resolved.
Additionally, active publics are often engaged in voluntary information sharing (Kim & J. E.
Grunig, 2011). Active publics could play as experienced mobile donors to help publicize a mobile
giving campaign and/or educate others about mobile donations. Mobile campaigns could reward
active publics who successfully refer another mobile user to make a mobile donation, or provide
rewards or lucky draws for those who help share a mobile campaign on their social media pages or
forward the campaign to their friends.
Aware publics are people who “do perceive the existence of a problem but are not as active as the
active public” (Kim et al., 2011, p. 175). In this study, aware publics (n = 622, 62.58%) refer to people
who answered “Yes” to “Have you ever heard of mobile donation” but “No” to “Have you ever made
a mobile donation?”
To motivate aware publics, nonprofits should focus on developing favorable attitudes toward
mobile donation technology, which were mostly influenced by perceived usefulness and perceived
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION 13

credibility (Figure 3). Strategic communications could have more success if they included messages
demonstrating the usefulness of mobile donations in terms of raising funds from a geographically
diverse population within a short time and/or clarify that the payment procedure will neither lead to
a recurring charge nor abuse of personal or billing information.
Nonprofit practitioners could also segment the aware publics to high attitude publics and low
attitude publics and then target the high attitude individuals and communities where people have
a positive attitude towards mobile donation technology. Considering the impacts of involvement and
problem recognition, nonprofits should prioritize the issues common in high attitude publics’
communities and then emphasize that these issues exist and can have serious impacts both locally
and beyond their communities.
Latent public refer to people who “face a common problem but have not recognized it” (Kim
et al., 2011, p. 175). Latent publics in this study refer to the people who had never heard about
mobile donations but would like to make a mobile donation after learning about the technology.
This study followed the method of prior research (J. E. Grunig & Hunt, 1984; Kim et al., 2011) to
isolate 87 latent publics (8.75%) by averaging the three indicators of donating intention and selecting
the respondents who had never heard of mobile donations but reported higher than four points of
the donating intention scale.
To motivate latent publics, nonprofits should increase awareness of mobile donation technology
by incorporating more ads in fundraising campaigns. Because donating intentions were affected by
communicative actions, practitioners could also develop tactics to improve latent publics’ commu-
nicative actions. The more that latent publics obtain, select, and share information related to an
issue, the more they are likely to access information about multiple approaches to address the issue,
including making a mobile donation.
Non-publics refer to people who do not face the problem at all and have little interest in any
organization (Kim et al., 2011, p. 175). Non-publics in this study refers to people who had never
heard of mobile donation and had little interest in making a mobile donation even after learning
about it. This study identified 79 individuals (7.95%) by selecting the respondents who had never
heard of mobile donations and also reported four or fewer points on the donating intention scale.
Due to the limited resources, non-publics are usually not considered as the target audience for most
fundraising campaigns.

Limitations and future research

While making numerous contributions, this study’s limitations must be acknowledged and addressed
through future research. First, this study was limited to the U.S. population. Previous STOPS studies
proved that the situational theory worked differently with Asian populations in South Korea (Kim
et al., 2012), Hong Kong area (Chen et al., 2017), and mainland China (Zheng, McKeever, & Xu,
2016). Future research should thus improve STAM’s generalizability by replicating it to study
philanthropic participation in other countries and compare the results between the U.S. and other
countries.
Second, Amazon MTurk only included Internet users who were registered with AMT, which
leaves out many people who have mobile donating experience but have never registered as an AMT
worker. Also, the respondents recruited through AMT are not a random sample but based on AMT
workers’ voluntary participation. Future research should replicate the model with additional popula-
tions by using a random sampling technique.
Third, this study only examined mobile users’ motivations to make a mobile donation. It is
unknown whether nonprofit practitioners are aware of this technology and whether they have any
barriers to employ mobile donation technology to execute their fundraising campaigns. Future
research should thus explore nonprofit practitioners’ motivations and obstacles to use mobile
donation technology in the implementation process of a mobile campaign.
14 Y. ZHENG

Finally, an open-ended question included at the end of the survey received an unexpected answer:
One respondent said he refused to make a mobile donation because his phone was included in his
parents’ family plan and his parents paid for the phone bill. He felt like his parents would not
support his mobile donating behaviors. Therefore, future research should employ qualitative meth-
ods to explore additional considerations involved in the complex decision-making process of making
charitable donations by using new technologies. Additionally, future research should employ other
methods such as experiments to further examine the effectiveness of different messaging strategies
for different publics and the causal relationships between donation intentions and the related
variables of interest.

Conclusion
As of February 2016, only 20.72% of respondents in this study had ever made a mobile donation in
the U.S. This percentage might be somewhat disappointing for nonprofits; however, the mobile
donation market still has great potential because of the high awareness among mobile phone users.
Of those who had never made any mobile donation in this survey, 78.93% of them had heard of it.
Also, in terms of conducting fundraising campaigns in the international scope, mobile donation still
works better than other online donation methods, due to the ubiquity, convenience, and low skill
barrier of the text messaging function. Nonprofit organizations should thus continue their efforts in
embedding mobile donation in their fundraising campaigns, replicating and refining the situational
technology acceptance model (STAM) in other countries, and using the segmenting strategy and
messaging tactics suggested by this study to target and motivate global donors.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding
This research is funded by the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at University of South Carolina,
Columbia.

ORCID
Yue Zheng http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5504-5586

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