# Determinants of Memory Encoding of Altruistic Messages: M-Delphi and F-DEMATEL Approach
## 6 Discussion
### Theoretical Implications  
This study makes three contributions to the literature on non-governmental organizations' social marketing. First, the study demonstrates the critical factors that non-profit organizations need to consider when crafting messages about altruism. Although prior studies have examined how non-profit organizations can more effectively communicate to their target audiences, they have mainly focused on communications in other contexts, such as policy advocacy, social activism, and citizen engagement promotion [4; 5; 6]. However, many non-profit organizations aim not only to help and serve people in their target audiences but also to communicate their core values to them. One of the non-profit organizations' core values is altruism, which drives their service efforts to their target audiences. By communicating these values to their audiences, the organizations pass on the awareness of the need for help and its benefits. Consequently, many become driven to help others, boosting general societal welfare. This study's results indicate that personal interest, emotional appeal, and personal experience should be considered to communicate effectively to their audiences. This study demonstrates that emotional appeal, personal experience, and personal interest are causal factors leading to memory encoding. These factors also have causal effects on other factors proposed in this study. Thus, considering these factors in crafting altruistic messages leads to memory encoding. Secondly, the results of this study demonstrate the affordances of altruistic communication via television. Prior studies examining non-profit organization communicationshave examined communication through other platforms such as social media [18], billboard communication, and interpersonal communication [80; 81]. However, different modes of communication work differently, such that the communication dynamics on a specific mode may not necessarily apply to other modes. Our study adds to the literature on non-governmental organization communication by demonstrating how organizations can communicate more effectively through visual media, particularly television. Furthermore, we examine the determinants of altruistic communication using a relatively different methodological perspective. Multicriteria decision making methods have widely been ignored in studies examining altruistic communication [3; 7; 48]. Given that multicriteria decision methods such as F-DEMATEL provide insights about which factors ought to be given more attention in decision making, these methods are also applied in examining altruistic communication. Third, using social cognitive theory, this study provides a multidimensional view of the determinants of effective social communication by non-profit organizations. Our results demonstrate that it is not enough for non-profit organizations to focus only on specific enablers of effective communication. Instead, paying attention to multiple factors would help ensure communication is more effective. Our results demonstrate that personal interest, personal experience, and emotional appeal (an indicator of message superiority) are essential determinants for the memory encoding of altruistic messages. Prior studies on non-profit organization social communication have largely ignored the approach taken by this study. Most previous studies have taken a unidimensional approach to examining the determinants of non-profit organizations. For instance, [PERSON]. [13] examined the role of information transparency in effective communication by non-profit organizations. [PERSON]. [12] demonstrated that participatory communication ensures the effectiveness of communication, whereas [11] explained the role of network formation in ensuring effective communication by non-profit organizations. Our results contrast these prior studies because they indicate that focusing on just one enhancing factor in the communication process may not be enough.