ABSTRACT

Nonprofits engage in various service and advocacy efforts to support their missions, and it is critical to effectively communicate the importance of these activities and their missions to donors. In these communications, it remains unclear the extent to which messaging from nonprofit elites such as coalitions and other nonprofit infrastructure organizations (NIOs) shapes donor support for service and advocacy activities, and which messages exhibit the strongest influence on donors. This survey experiment tests the effects of three strategic messages from a fictional NIO on respondents’ allocation of donation budgets between traditionally service-oriented nonprofits engaging in varying levels of service and advocacy activities. Results show messages promoting advocacy and social change yield substantial donation increases to nonprofits engaging in low and high levels of advocacy work. Messages pushing direct service failed to produce effects on donor intentions; however, findings suggest direct service may enjoy an inherent advantage in donor preference.

摘要

非营利组织参与各种服务和宣传工作以支持其使命，有效地向捐助者传达这些活动及其使命的重要性至关重要。在这些交流中，尚不清楚来自联盟和其他非营利基础设施组织 (NIO) 等非营利精英的信息在多大程度上影响捐助者对服务和宣传活动的支持，以及哪些信息对捐助者的影响最大。该调查实验测试了来自虚构的 NIO 的三个战略信息对受访者在传统上以服务为导向的非营利组织之间分配捐赠预算的影响，这些非营利组织从事不同级别的服务和宣传活动。结果显示，促进宣传和社会变革的信息为从事低级和高级宣传工作的非营利组织带来了可观的捐款增加。推送直接服务的消息未能对捐助意向产生影响；然而，调查结果表明，直接服务可能在捐助者偏好方面享有固有优势。