The Impact of Familiarity and Perceived Trustworthiness and Influence on Donations to Nonprofits: An Unaided Recall Study

ABSTRACT

What affects donations? Is it all in “the ask,” or does brand image matter? In the nonprofit brands literature perceived trustworthiness and influence of the organization are important factors that increase constituents’ willingness to support an organization. We examined the association between a nonprofit organization’s familiarity, trustworthiness, and influence and the propensity of donations it receives. To this end, we used a questionnaire on attitudes toward nonprofit organizations and unaided recall of nonprofit organizations collected from a nationally representative sample. The attitudes data revealed that perceptions of nonprofits’ effectiveness and trustworthiness in Israel are not particularly positive. A multivariate fractional polynomial regression on the unaided recall results shows that while familiarity and perceived effectiveness are positively associated with the propensity of donations to nonprofit organizations, trustworthiness is not. We explain this surprising result by changes in Israeli social policy, political culture, and trust in institutions. We suggest different efforts that organizations can make to enhance their brand image and consequently increase donations.

KEYWORDS:

• Nonprofit brands
• donations
• unaided recall
• trustworthiness
• effectiveness

Acknowledgments

This research was done with the assistance of the Israeli nonprofit rating agency Midot, which helped in developing the research instrument. Data collection was performed pro bono by Panels LTD.

I wish to thank Zvika Arran, founder of Midot, for his help in formulating the questionnaire, his role in completing this article, and his friendship.

An earlier version of this article (The Goal Justifies the Means? Predicting Donations by NPOs’ Familiarity, Trustworthiness and Influence) was presented at the 44th annual ARNOVA conference, Chicago, Illinois, November 2015.