The new research is by Sara Konrath, Ph.D, a psychologist and assistant professor at Indiana University. The Lilly School sponsored a philanthropy symposium last year in Indianapolis, with Ms. Donikian moderating the panel that also included researcher Russell James of Texas Tech University.
"This research is very preliminary," Konrath told the symposium. "We have just developed a scale that measures people's motivations for donating to charitable organizations, and we have found six factors or main reasons why people donate."
Six motivations to give (or not give)
Konrath said that the six factors for giving (or refusing to give) fall into two categories - three factors that are "self-oriented" and three that are "other-oriented":
Self-oriented factors for outright gifts:
- Egoism (giving to feel good about oneself and/or giving to protect oneself from negative feelings).
- Giving to receive tax benefits.
- Refusing to give because of financial constraints.
- Altruistic reasons - wanting to help others.
- Social reasons - giving is important to those we care about.
- Trust in the charitable organization.
The study found that women rated altruism and trust as more important reasons to give when compared to men. Men rated tax benefits as a more important reason for outright gifts. There was no gender difference for the other three reasons (egoism, financial constraints, and social motives).
Those results line up well with other research on gender differences that has also found women to be more charitable and more concerned with trusting a charitable organization:
- Women make 63% of charitable bequests, according to research from James in the study American Charitable Bequest Demographics.
- Female-headed households were more likely to give to charity than were male-headed households across all five income categories analyzed in Women Give 2010.
- In the highest income category, those making more than $103,000, women were 26% more likely to give. This category is most likely to make planned gifts.
- The 2011 Study of High Net Worth Women's Philanthropy found that women put more trust in the organizations they support. Those with high net worth are more likely to make planned gifts.
Older donors more altruistic
The study also found that older adults say they are more motivated to make outright gifts for altruistic and social reasons.
"They give because they want to help others and because it is more important to the people they love," Konrath said. "But before you assume that they are saints, let's look at this next finding: Older adults are also more likely to give for tax benefits."
Younger adults are more motivated by egoism. They are also more likely to say they did not give because of financial constraints. In terms of trust in the charity, there were not significant age differences.
The other reason people give: Because they are asked
Konrath told the symposium audience that there are other strong reasons people give that are not typically identified by donors.
"One of the most common reasons people give - not surprising to this audience - is because they are asked. And another common reason is because they gave in the past," she said. "But most donors won't say that the only reason they gave to the local homeless shelter is because somebody asked them. They'll tell you something about what it means to them and what's motivating them."
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