Nonprofit advertising and behavioral intention: The effects of persuasive messages on donations and volunteerism

Nonprofit organizations are dependent on donations and volunteers to remain operational. Most rely on persuasive communications to inform, educate, and convince recipients of their messaging to respond in order to raise funds and generate volunteers. Though the marketing and psychology literature has examined charitable giving and volunteerism, the effectiveness of persuasive messages to affect philanthropy, gift-giving, and fundraising is a gap in the cause marketing literature (Dann et al. 2007). Because consumers rarely enter a situation without preexisting attitudes or beliefs, it is expected that individuals exposed to an advertisement by a nonprofit organization will look for ways to compare the messages within the ad to their own beliefs and attitudes. Two theories help explain the processing that takes place in relation to attitudes, beliefs, and persuasive communications – elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The research presented here combines these theories to answer questions regarding behavioral intention related to donating and volunteering when individuals are exposed to certain persuasive messages from a nonprofit organization. Results show that one’s involvement with the advertisement combines with one’s attitude toward donating to help determine propensity to donate and the amount of the donation. However, this is dependent upon the message in the ad. When messages indicate that others are supportive of the cause, donations increase when one is more involved with the ad and is generally agreeable to donating. But these messages have the opposite effect when one is not involved with the ad – donations decrease when the message indicates others support the cause. And when messages indicate that even a minimal donation is possible, the attitude driver has no effect on donation behavior. However, when involvement is low, one’s age plays a role in driving individuals toward action, with older people more driven to give when exposed to supportive messages under low involvement conditions than younger groups. For individuals who tend to rely on referents for their own actions, differing messages in advertisements have little effect whether they are involved with the ad or not. That is, in most cases, only their involvement with the ad seems to be the real indicator of behavior. That said, the message that indicates that minimum giving is acceptable seems to affect donations, as individuals more prone to seek referent input rely on this message to help direct behavior, but not volunteerism. But, the cues were more readily adopted by those who were not highly involved. This research contributes to the field of cause marketing in several ways. First, it exposed involvement with the advertisement as the primary driver for behavioral intention in a nonprofit context over one’s preexisting attitudes and beliefs. Second, it identified varying response patterns that individuals have to specific advertising messages based on their level of involvement and strength of those beliefs and attitudes. Third, it augmented the integrated ELM-TPB theoretical model by demonstrating that attitude toward the ad can play a role in consumer decision making. Fourth, it identified age as a factor in behavioral intention related to nonprofit organizations in two specific instances: 1) when attitude and involvement combine for older individuals exposed to normative messages, and 2) when subjective norms and involvement combine for younger individuals exposed to messages that legitimize minimal effort. And fifth, it uncovered implications for managers to develop strategic messages that can increase target audience involvement and positively affect donations and volunteerism.