NVSQ Blog

Recruitment at What Cost? The Impact of Mass Market Interpersonal Fundraising

Aakash Thottam and Cassandra Chapman, The University of Queensland, Australia.

Picture this: you’re out shopping, immersed in thoughts of errands or weekend plans, when you’re approached by an earnest charity fundraiser armed with a clipboard and a persuasive pitch for support. This form of face-to-face fundraising is common in many countries but has earned the grim moniker of “chugging” (a contraction of “charity” and “mugging”), suggesting public unease with this fundraising method.

If you’ve ever been accosted by friends at a barbeque, you’ll know that many people find such practices to be annoying or even unethical. So why do charities continue to use methods that risk upsetting potential supporters?

The short answer is that there is evidence that interpersonal fundraising methods are effective at recruiting high volumes of new donors, especially face-to-face (where potential donors are approached on public streets or in malls) and door-to-door (where donors are approached in their own homes). However, there is not much evidence about what happens after those donors are recruited: do such donors become committed supporters who are valuable in the longer term? We explored precisely this issue in our recently published NVSQ paper with James Casey and Cassandra France.

Designing Effective Volunteering Appeals

Photo by Anastasia Shuraeva on Pexels.com

Eva Maria Jedicke¹, Stephan Olk², Adnan Zogaj¹, Dieter K. Tscheulin¹, Jörg Lindenmeier¹, ¹ University of Freiburg, Germany, ² Horn & Company, Düsseldorf, Germany

Volunteering is a cornerstone of individual well-being and social cohesion, with millions of people donating their time to nonprofit organizations. Given the increasing demand for volunteers as a resource and the competition nonprofits face, our research examines the role of volunteer appeals, a form of persuasive advertising, in influencing individuals to donate their time to social causes. In our recently published NVSQ article, we present findings that guide nonprofit organizations in tailoring effective volunteering campaigns, and to tailor volunteer appeals to specific audiences.

In doing so, we considered four critical attributes that can shape volunteer appeals: time commitment; emotion arousing imagery (in particular appeals to “guilt” and “pride”); slogans that activate volunteer motives, and; accountability seals that serve as signals of the credibility and trustworthiness of a nonprofit organization.

Achieving organizationality: Spontaneous Volunteering in Large-Scale Crises

Christine Carius, Jan Graw, and Carsten Schultz, Kiel University, Germany

In the face of crises, spontaneous volunteers (SVs) are often the first to leap into action, providing rapid responses to urgent needs where formal relief organizations may fall short. These efforts, born from a sense of necessity when traditional channels falter, are characterized by an improvisational approach, learning as they go. Whether it’s in the aftermath of natural disasters like hurricane Katrina or man-made crises such as the refugee crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, SVs play a vital role, often filling gaps left by official aid efforts.

Yet, despite their importance, the dynamics of SV collectives remain poorly understood. How do these groups emerge, organize, and coordinate their efforts amidst chaos? The lack of formal authority within SV groups can sometimes lead to conflicts, both internally and with relief forces. As such, achieving legitimacy becomes crucial for effective operation during crises, often requiring the development of a collective identity and recognizable organizational structures.

However, the process of gaining legitimacy while maintaining flexibility and adaptability poses significant challenges. How do SV collectives establish their authority, how can they become legitimate stakeholders and complement relief forces in the best way? We turned to the concept of organizationality, seeking to understand how these groups form and gain legitimacy within the complex situation of crisis response. We aim to unravel the mysteries of SV emergence, organizationality, and legitimacy in the face of adversity. In our recently published NVSQ Article we tracked the emergence of organizationality in spontaneous volunteers.

Strategic Management Only Goes So Far…

Mark Hager, Arizona State University

A friend re-posted a meme to her Facebook this afternoon. I guess it resonates with people, since it shows as shared 27,000 times:

This meme is fun because it winks at people who don’t remember to water their plants. “It’s not your fault,” says the wink. “It’s the impossible environment that this poor plant found itself in.” Thing is, failures to water aside, environmental shifts are sometimes the entire explanation for what happens to a plant. Even if you are diligent at watering, the plant is in trouble if a tornado takes out your house.

That makes sense, right? But somehow we seem to forget this when we study and try to explain the behavior of organizations. That’s my read, anyway: These days, scholars tend to focus on the strategic decisions of managers rather than the environments they operate in. This is odd given how nonprofits have struggled through the pandemic, many of which did not have what it takes to thrive in that fast-paced environment.