Why give? : a multi-charity study of motivation

Australian charities have experienced intense competition in recent times, with greater numbers of charities competing for the limited donor dollar. Thus, understanding what motivates people to give money is important. The purpose of this research was to determine the relationship between financial donors’ motivations and their donation amount across multiple charity types comprising animal and environmental charities; health and health research; disability charities; welfare charities; international aid charities; and children’s charities. A qualitative study (n = 32) provided preliminary insights and formed the basis of the subsequent national quantitative main study (n = 400). Multinomial logistic regression revealed that various combinations of esteem, fear, guilt, social justice and empathy were significant predictors of the financial donations made across the six charity types.