Impulsive donation decisions during online browsing of charity websites

Journal of Consumer BehaviourJ. Consumer Behav. 8: 116–134 (2009)Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/cb.277
Impulsive donation decisions duringonline browsing of charity websitesRoger Bennett*London Metropolitan University, UK

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*Corin MMooE-ma

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lthough online fundraising by charitable organisations is now commonplace, many

aspects of effective online fundraising remain unexamined. In particular, little is known

about the nature and determinants of impulsive donation decisions taken by browsers of

charity websites. This empirical study attempted to help fill this important gap in current

knowledge about online fundraising via an investigation of the antecedents of impulsive

online giving to a hospice organisation in the south of England. Two hundred and thirty-

nine donors who stated that their gifts had beenmade impulsively and 223 donors whose

online gifts were reported as having been pre-planned completed a questionnaire that

explored, inter alia, a person’s socio-demographic characteristics, level of impulsiveness

and attitude towards impulsive behaviour, charity donation history, prior knowledge of

hospice issues, subjective norms and personal involvement with charity giving. The main

determinants of impulsive donations were identified and the profiles of various types of

impulsive giver were established. Relevant matters were investigated in the contexts of

two types of web page design: emotive and informative.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

The incidence of online giving to charities hasincreased dramatically in recent years. InBritain, for example, online credit carddonations processed through the UK CharitiesAid Foundation rose from £65.5million in 2002to £325.6 million in 2006 (ProfessionalFundraising, 2006). In the USA online givingwas worth $4.5 billion (£2.21 billion) in 2005,representing between 10 and 15 per cent ofthe donor incomes of most US charities (NFG,2006). A survey of 1090 randomly selected UK

respondence to: Roger Bennett, Centre for Researcharketing, London Metropolitan Business School, 84rgate, London EC2M 6SQ, UK.il: [email protected]

yright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J

internet users carried out in 2006 found that7 per cent of the sample had donated to acharity online over the previous 12 months(Professional Fundraising, 2006), equating to1.8 million donations by internet users in thepopulation as awhole. Importantly, it is knownthat the average value of online donations isconsistently higher than for offline donations(NFG, 2006). Indeed, Harrison-Walker andWilliamson (2000 p. 251) found that peopletypically gave 15–20 per cent morewhen usinga credit card than when writing a cheque.Browsers of charity websites tend to belong tohigher income groups and social classes andare relatively young (typically aged between 35and 44 according to Saxton, 2001). Individualswho already give to charity and/or engage in

ournal of Consumer Behaviour, Mar.–June 2009

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Impulsive donation decisions during online browsing 117

voluntary work visit charity websites morefrequently than others (Reed, 1997; Saxton,2001). Additionally, however, the Internet isbecoming a crucial device for attractingdonations from the under-35s (who interactwith the Internet as a matter of course) and(critically) from first time givers. Analyses ofonline fundraising campaigns undertaken by anumber of charities have revealed that up totwo-thirds of the donors were making theirfirst gift (Hall, 2000). Online giving is especiallyimportant following humanitarian crises. Dis-aster and famine relief appeals in particular areknown to entice large numbers of first timevisitors to charity websites, enabling them toraise millions in periods of just a few weeks(Gomes and Knowles, 2001). In the USA,internet donations for tsunami relief in 2004accounted for more than a third of the totalamount raised. Half of all the donationsreceived following Hurricane Katrina in 2005were given online (NFG, 2006). It follows fromthe above that charity managers have becomeincreasingly interested in the website designsand online fundraising tactics that are mostlikely to maximise the frequencies and levels ofonline donations.Online donations to charities have increased

in line with the rise of online consumershopping (Kau et al., 2003), and there areindeed several parallels between the two. Forinstance, both online purchases and onlinedonations are at their highest on weekdaysduring normal business hours as peoplebrowse the internet while at work. Tuesdaysbetween 10.00 am and noon is a particularlyeventful period in this respect (see Guidestar,2006). Online shopping is especially commonin the run-up to Christmas, as is online charitygiving (some US charities receive 60% of theirannual income in the 3 weeks before Christ-mas–see NFG, 2006). More and more, peoplego to the internet for general information andfor news. Ware (2007) reported commercialresearch which found that the average Britonwith computer access spends 2 hours and44minutes on the internet every working day.On average 42 seconds were spent looking at aweb page, with the average person’s attention

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J

beginning to stray after 10 seconds. Concomi-tantly, members of the public increasingly usethe internet to educate themselves aboutparticular issues dealt with by charities andabout good causes in general. A survey of 111young (25–34 years) lower to middle incomeinternet users conducted on behalf of CAF(2006) found that 12 per cent had accessed theinternet specifically to obtain information oncharities. Nineteen per cent of the respondentsclaimed they received all their news throughthe internet. A quarter of the sample hadalready made an online donation to a charityand two-thirds stated that they intended to doso in the future.

The present study

This paper examines an aspect of online givingthat to the very best of the author’s knowledgehas not previously been researched in depth,namely the question of why certain peopleimpulsively donate online while browsingcharity websites. The matter was examined intwo website scenarios; one containing infor-mative messages and the other focussing onemotive messages and imagery. Data wascollected within each of these distinct visualcontexts, thus enabling the application of aquasi-experimental approach involving twonon-randomly determined conditions. Thedegrees to which each of the website designsencouraged individuals to donate impulsivelywere then compared.Impulsive buying behaviour has been

researched extensively (for reviews of relevantliterature see for example Dittmar et al., 1996;Bayley and Nancarrow, 1998; Beatty andFerrell, 1998; Hausman, 2000; Zhang et al.,2007), but the subject has not been investi-gated in relation to charity giving. The topic isimportant nevertheless because it is knownthat most people act impulsively at least onoccasion (see Bellman et al., 1999; Zhanget al., 2007) and that, so far as customerpurchasing behaviour is concerned, up to50 per cent of all purchases are made onimpulse (see Bayley and Nancarrow, 1998). By


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118 Roger Bennett

analogy it seems reasonable to suppose thatmany donors give to charity on impulse fromtime to time. Moreover a study completed byDonthu and Garcia (1999) found a significantdifference in the level of impulsivenessbetween internet and non-internet shoppers,with the former exhibiting higher impulsive-ness than the latter. Hamilton (2000) reportedresearch concluding that up to half of allinternet transactions in the USA were attribu-table to ‘impatient’ internet users who spentan average of just 7 hours a week online.Charity managers need to understand impul-

sive donor behaviour in order to formulatemarketing strategies for maximising thispotentially lucrative source of income. Accord-ingly the present research sought (i) toexamine the incidence of impulsive onlinecharity giving decisions among a sample ofonline donors, (ii) to describe the character-istics of people most likely to give impulsivelyonline, (iii) to cluster different types ofimpulsive giver into various categories and(iv) to establish whether innately ‘impulsive’individuals were more likely to donate impul-sively than others. In particular the studyaddressed the important issue of the extents towhich certain forms of website content, i.e.emotive and informative, stimulated impulsiveonline giving. In other more ‘traditional’fundraising contexts, e.g. direct mail, radio,press and television advertising, emotivelyfashioned messages focussing on dramaticevents, tragedy and personal suffering havebeen found to constitute highly effectivefundraising weapons (see Bennett and Kottasz,2000 for details of relevant literature regardingthis matter). The question arises as to whethersuch findings generalise to online donationenvironments.

Nature and determinants ofimpulsive behaviour

Many contemporary interpretations of impul-sive behaviour have been influenced by studiesof impulsive consumer purchasing, especiallyby thework of Stern (1962)who saw impulsive


buying as that which was both unplanned andexecuted immediately an urge was experi-enced. The distinction between planned andunplanned purchases can be problematic,however, as the intention to buy may bemodified right up to the moment of purchase(Philips and Bradshaw, 1993; Baumeister,2002). Moreover there are problematic issuesthat can arise from a person’s plan to purchasefrom within a certain product category,followed by an unplanned purchase of aparticular item or brand within that category(see Bayley and Nancarrow, 1998). Suchconsiderations have prompted other research-ers to extend Stern’s approach to includeemotional elements and psychological urges tomake a purchase (see Rook, 1987). Engel andBlackwell (1982) for instance characterisedimpulsive behaviour as ‘actions undertakenwithout a problem previously having beenconsciously recognised’ (p. 19), whilst Rook(1987) and Rook and Fisher (1995) sawoverpowering emotions to act as laying atthe heart of impulsive buying. Rook (1987) inparticular focussed on the emotional impera-tive dimension of impulsive behaviour, defin-ing impulse purchasing as that which occurredwhen a person ‘experiences a sudden, oftenpowerful and persistent urge to buy somethingimmediately and then acts on that urgewithoutsubstantive evaluation’ and ‘with diminishedregard for consequences’ (p. 191).

Often, Rook (1987), Rook and Fisher (1995)and others (for details see Hausman, 2000)have alleged, impulsive decisions to act aredominated by a hedonic or affective com-ponent. For example, Bayley and Nancarrow(1998) defined a category of impulsive actionwherein the individual submits to the passion

of an impulse and thereafter greatly enjoys theemotions associated with the submission. Astudy completed by Weinberg and Gottwold(1982) also found that impulsive behaviourfrequently emanated from scenarios contain-ing very high levels of emotional activationaccompanied by hedonic pleasure consequentto yielding to an urge to make a purchase.Other research into impulsive behaviour hasconcluded that it can be influenced by mood,


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situation, emotion, specific stimuli and bysocial influences such as the attitudes of familyor valued peers (see Kanuk and Schiffman,2000; Smith and Rupp, 2003). It is unclearhowever as to whether impulsive acts are orshould be regarded as ‘irrational’. Arguablyimpulsive behaviour is perfectly rational in thatit (i) can save time and cognitive effort(Thompson et al., 1990) and (ii) may some-times give a person substantial emotionalpleasure (Malter, 1996). Also, by offering asimple decision making heuristic, it could besaid to represent a rational response tocomplex situations containing heavy infor-mation overload (Hausman, 2000).A useful summary of the core elements of

impulsive behaviour is perhaps that suggestedby Piron (1991), who concluded that itcontained four main components: absence ofplanning, exposure to a stimulus, on-the-spotdecision making and an emotional and/orcognitive reaction. Online impulsive charitydonations are not pre-planned, they oftenemanate from virtual scenarios that containstimuli which encourage on-the-spot donationdecisions, and the stimuli in question typicallygive rise to emotional or cognitive reactions.The urge to give immediately is often powerful(NFG, 2006). This urgemight only last for a fewmoments (NFG, 2006) and normally will notinvolve much careful thought or reflection.Past research in the consumer behaviour

field has identified a number of factors thatmight encourage or inhibit impulsive buying,and presumably therefore impulsive giving, asfollows.

Personal impulsiveness

Rook and Fisher (1995) identified a substantialbody of literature that alleged the existence ofa general personality trait connected with thetendency to buy spontaneously and unreflec-tively. This relatively enduring characteristic of‘impulsivity’, which originally was investigatedby Wolman (1973), could exist, according toRook and Fisher (1995), in up to 20 per cent ofthe population. According to Zhang et al.


(2007), impulsivity is today broadly recognisedas a significant socio-psychological trait.A priori it seems reasonable to suppose thathighly impulsive individuals will be more likelyto donate impulsively than others.

Subjective norms

Subjective norms involve judgements ofwhether important people in an individual’slife will approve or disapprove of a certainaction (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Forexample, many people trust members of theirfamily and close friends, and thus, tend to valuetheir opinions when making decisions (Smithand Rupp, 2003). In principle, therefore,subjective norms should influence a person’sbehavioural intentions. Zhang et al. (2007)reported conflicting evidence concerning theproposition that subjective norms affectimpulsive behaviour. For operational purposesthe present study assumes that if a personbelieves that his or her close friends and familywould approve of the individual giving to acharity then the person will be more likely tomake an impulsive donation.

Emotional uplift

Several studies have concluded that impulsivebehaviour has a hedonistic component andspecifically that impulsive actions providehedonistic rewards (see Hausman, 2000 fordetails of relevant literature). Rook (1987)characterised the feelings associated withmaking an impulsive purchase as ‘overwhelm-ing’ and ‘exciting, intense, even euphoric’ (p.193). Bayley and Nancarrow (1998) similarlydescribed the pleasurable sensations experi-enced through submitting to the ‘passion of animpulse’ (p. 106).Likewise, an impulsive gift to a charity might

provide a person with a ‘psychological lift’ (cf.Hausman, 2000 p. 407), a deep sense ofpersonal satisfaction, feelings of being ener-gised (cf. Rook, 1987) and a general improve-ment in the donor’s general mood (Piron,1991). Giving to charity can bolster an


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120 Roger Bennett

individual’s self-image and this could act as apowerful motivator of donor behaviour. Theterm ‘helpers’ high’ is sometimes used todescribe the surge of self-gratifying positiveemotion that certain individuals experienceconsequent to a charitable act or donation andwhich leads to enhanced self-esteem (seeBennett and Gabriel, 1999). Indeed, giving tocharity has been characterised as ‘the monet-ary purchase of moral satisfaction’ undertakenfor the egoistic reason of wanting to feel better(Strahilevitz and Myers, 1998 p. 435). Peoplewho experience intense helpers’ high mightbe more likely to give impulsively because thevery act of donating may enable them inwardlyto assert that they are altruistic and possesshigh ideals andmoral values. The gift conveys asymbolic statement about the person that fitsin with his or her self-identify (Williamson andClark, 1989).

Prior knowledge of an issue

The matters dealt with by charitable organis-ations are frequently complex, so a poor pre-existing knowledge of a particular issue mightdiscourage impulse giving (cf. Hausman,2000). Website browsers may not feel compe-tent to evaluate (i) the work of a charityoperating in a specific area compared to theactivities of other charities in the same field(Baron, 1994), or (ii) the merits of a smallcharity relative to those of a large organisation.It is relevant to note in this connection thelarge numbers of UK charities that competeagainst each other for public donations, oftenwithin the same sector (see Bennett, 2005).Thus, browsers might feel ill-prepared toundertake the cognitive task of decidingwhether to donate to a particular organisationon the basis of inadequate information, leadingto withdrawal from the website (Hausman,2000). Mass advertising of an issue might leadto impulse donations because it increases thepublic’s knowledge of the matter in question,and hence the chances of a person visiting acharity’s website (cf. Stern, 1962).


Negative attitudes towards impulsive

behaviour

Despite the fact that impulsive purchases areknown to account for a substantial proportionof all goods sold, it is known that someindividuals regard impulsive buying as imma-ture, risky, irrational and a sign that the personmaking the purchase lacks self-control (seeHausman, 2000 for details of academic studiessupporting these propositions). To the extentthat people regard impulsive behaviour in anegative light they are likely to avoid acting inthis manner, because they do not want toidentify themselves with immaturity and/orirrationality. Such individuals need to beconvinced that an impulsive action is appro-priate and fully justified in certain circum-stances (Rook and Fisher, 1995).

Charity-related factors

Donation history

A priori it is reasonable to predict that themore a person has given to charity in general,the higher the probability that the individualwill make an impulse donation, since a donorwho has given large amounts in the past willpresumably feel more relaxed about making anadditional donation (Thaler, 1999).

Trust in the organisation

A browser’s propensity to yield to an impul-sive desire to donate to a charity might bestrengthened by the person’s trust in thecharity, which in turn might depend onthe organisation’s size and perceived repu-tation (Bennett andGabriel, 2003). NFG (2006)suggested that impulsive donations weresubstantially more likely to go to large well-known charities, because members of thepublic trusted these organisations.

Involvement with charity giving

Strong feelings of personal involvement withcharity giving could also enhance an individual’s


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propensity to give impulsively. Bennett andGabriel (2000) identified a category of charitydonors who psychologically were highlyinvolved in the act of giving to charity. Deeppsychological involvement with charity givingcould cause a person to process a charity’swebsite more intensely and to be morereceptive to its messages (cf. Martin, 1998).Hence, people who regard the act of giving (orotherwise supporting) charities as beingpersonally relevant, important, interestingand necessary (see Bennett and Gabriel,2000)may bemore likely to donate impulsivelythan others as their feelings of involvement arelikely to be stimulated by making an on-the-spot gift. An opposing interpretation is thatpeople who psychologically are heavilyinvolved with giving to charity are the leastlikely to give impulsively as they will probablymake generous (planned) donations anyhow(cf. Heslin and Johnson, 1992). The personconcerned may possess extensive prior knowl-edge about the relevant good cause and alreadyhave committed him or her-self to making adonation (Bloch and Richins, 1983).

Gender

Some prior research into impulsive behaviourhas found that men tend to behave moreimpulsively than women (see Dittmar et al.,1996; Beatty and Ferrell, 1998; Hausman,2000). The justification sometimes offeredfor this is that men are allegedly more ‘task-oriented’ and ‘tend not to ask for directions’(Zhang et al., 2007 p. 80). To the extent thatmales are in fact more likely to donateimpulsively, then males represent a moreattractive target audience than women foronline fundraisers who wish to maximiseimpulsive online donations.

Mode of presentation and web page

layout

Research in consumer behaviour has estab-lished that certain environmental circum-stances can inhibit or stimulate impulsive


purchasing (see Rook, 1987; Beatty and Ferrell,1998; Hausman, 2000; Zhang et al., 2007 fordetails of recent studies). Retail outlets inparticular have developed a variety of devicesto elicit impulse sales, including special dis-plays at checkouts, strategic product place-ments on shelves and the ‘bundling’ of items. Amatter of considerable concern for charitymanagers is the question of whether similarconditions replicated within a virtual on-linesituation have the capacity to influenceimpulsive on-line giving. Appeals within awebsite may be framed cognitively or affec-tively, and may or may not be designed toelicit impulsive (as opposed to pre-planned)donations.An emotive presentation of an issue that

confronts a browser with a disagreeablesituation offers the viewer a means ofassuaging feelings of guilt by making an(impulsive) donation. A browser might bedeeply shocked by disturbing words andpictures seen on-screen and may want to helpat that very moment (NFG, 2006). On the otherhand, a written discussion of an issue on awebsite containing convincing reasons of whya person should give might be more likely toinduce an impulse donation. By definition,impulse donors do not enter a site intending togive, so the display of information accom-panied by links that enable the browser toanswer more specific questions might triggeran impulsive gift (cf. Hausman, 2000). Thedanger exists however that a ‘dense’ web pagewith much detail about an issue may causeinformation overload and confound the view-er’s understanding of the topic (Hausman,2000). NFG (2006) suggested that emotionalappeals in conjunction with a physically easyonline donation system were the most effec-tive for encouraging impulse gifts. Also,according to Lee and Berbasat (2003), the‘make a donation’ button should be presentedin a conspicuous and attention-grabbing man-ner and be quite distinct from other elementsof the screen. The button needs to becontiguous to a message which states thathelp is needed urgently and that the browsershould act immediately (Zhang et al., 2007).


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122 Roger Bennett

The investigation

The study examined impulsive donationbehaviour in relation to online gifts to a chainof hospices in the south of England. A hospicechain was a suitable vehicle for the investi-gation because large numbers of people (i)have elderly relatives who might need ahospice’s services towards the ends of theirlives or (ii) know others or the families ofothers who used a hospice. The hospicemovement receives large amounts of publicityand regularly features in television charityfundraising events (‘Red Nose Day’ forinstance) and in press articles. For example,The Sun newspaper carried 72 full articlesabout hospices between 2003 and 2006; theDaily Mirror had more than 100 articles onhospices and hospice issues in the sameperiod. These newspapers cater predomi-nantly for C2/D/E readerships. The Guardian

and the Daily Telegraph newspapers whichtarget people in the A/B/C1 social categoriesrespectively printed 84 and 65 full articles onhospices between 2003 and 2006, indicatingwidespread public interest in hospices amongall social classes. It follows that hospices arelikely to represent a type of charity that manyinternet browsers will be interested in inves-tigating. Also thework that hospices undertakeis poignant and prone to arouse emotionalresponses within a hospice website’s visitors.Therefore, hospice websites are perhapsamong the most likely of all charity websitesto induce impulsive donations. Hospices havehigh patient turnover (given that the typicalstay is just a few days) and because eachpatient will have relatives and friends who areconcerned for the person the potential foronline fundraising is substantial. The donorincome patterns of many hospices involvelarge numbers of relatively small value ad hocgifts, which are increasingly made on-line.

The organisation

Founded in the late 1960s and initially fundedby a Christian body, the hospice chain hostingthe study is today a secular charity with four


hospices in towns and cities in the south ofEngland. The organisation offers its servicesfree of charge to adult people of any religionwho require hospice services during the lastfew days of their lives. Each hospice hasbetween 20 and 32 beds for in-patients and inaddition furnishes a wide variety of out-careservices to individuals who choose to die athome. In 2006, the hospices collectively caredfor about 3000 in-patients and 1700 out-patients. Its 700 or so volunteers made over14 000 home visits. The organisation receiveslimited statutory funding. Rather, its biggestsource of income is legacies, which brought in£6million in 2006. In the same year, direct mailappeals raised around £700 000; raffles, events,public relations exercises, etc. generated afurther £0.7 million. Total donor income in2006 exceeded £3 million, including £400,000of online donations, representing 13.3 per centof the aggregate.

The charity has a single website similar informat to that of many other hospice organ-isations, with a home page that contains ageneral welcome plus sections inviting thebrowser to open links to pages entitled ‘aboutus’, ‘what we do’, ‘events’, ‘virtual tour’,‘newsletter’ and ‘how to get involved’. A‘make a donation’ icon appears prominentlyboth on the tool bar and at the bottom of thepage. On clicking the ‘make a donation’ iconthe visitor is sent to a fresh page which asks forthe visitor’s email address and donationamount. The next box on the page has adrop-down menu under a heading worded‘What prompted you to make a donation?’, asshown in Table 1. For the purpose of the studyan extra optionwas added to themenuworded‘I am making the donation on impulse withoutpreviously having planned to do so’ (seeTable 1).

In line with general practice within thehospice sector the design and overall make-upof the charity’s website is revised about once ayear, with alterations in the pictures and thestories included in the front page occurringevery few months. This enables the charity’swebsite administrator periodically to vary thesite’s appearance, and hence to assess the


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Table 1. Donation web page


impacts of changes on online donor income. Inthe period February–October 2006, the site’shome page was based more on informationthan on emotional imagery. The top left cornerof the page contained an attractive picture ofthe hospice’s buildings, beneath which was astatement beginning ‘At St XXXwe believe thatpeople’s time may be limited but the quality oftheir lives need not be’. This was followed by abrief description of the organisation’s work,the numbers of patients it had helped and anappeal for funds worded ‘We need you to helpmore people than ever know that life is forliving’ accompanied by a large ‘donate online’button. The right hand side of the page had asection headed ‘latest news’ and a sectionheaded ‘latest events’.Between February and October 2007 the

front page was altered to contain emotiveelements. The top left hand corner featured apoignant picture of a woman (aged about55 years) being hugged by an upset and


obviously deeply concerned little girl. This wasfollowed by an emotional strapline and,beneath that, a picture of a well-knowncelebrity embracing a young woman clearlyin need of care and affection. The onlinedonation button then appeared alongside anappeal from the abovementioned celebrity.Further distressing but moving picturesappeared to the right of this material showinga birthday party held inside the hospice (apatient surrounded by relatives, friends andother patients), a ‘walk extravaganza’ under-taken by supporters and patients’ relatives, anda happy and smiling elderly gentleman in awheelchair being cared for by the hospice’sstaff. No substantive information about theorganisation’s work was included in the homepage other than a list of links to pages entitled‘what we do’, ‘our philosophy’, etc.The research was undertaken between

February and October in 2006 and 2007,respectively. During this period in 2006 the


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124 Roger Bennett

organisation received 4485 online donations(average value £35) and, of these, 583 (13%) ofthe givers specified in the drop down menuthat their donation had been made on impulse(see Table 1). The donors involved werecontacted by the charity via email within48 hours of making their donations and invitedto complete a questionnaire. One hundred andeleven people replied, representing 19 percent of the sampling frame (a high response foran email survey, reflecting the respondents’positive feelings towards the charity). Anequivalent number (583) of donors who hadstated that their gifts had not been madeimpulsively were also sent the questionnaire,generating 105 responses (18%). The exercisewas repeated in 2007. Seventeen per cent ofthe 4723 online donations made betweenFebruary and October 2007 were recorded ashaving been made impulsively. One hundredand twenty-eight of these individuals com-pleted the questionnaire (16%). One hundredand eighteen donors who had stated that theirgift was not made impulsively also filled in thequestionnaire (14.7%). Thus, it was possible toexamine the relationships between browsers’personal characteristics and the degrees oftheir impulsive donation behaviour within twoweb page scenarios: informative in 2006 andemotive in 2007.It was decided to exclude the weeks before

and after Christmas because, as evidenced bythe experiences of many charities in the humanservices area, special considerations apply togiving within the Christmas period. People inthe West allegedly feel more benevolent in therun-up to Christmas. Peel (2006) reported thatsome US charities receive 60 per cent of theirannual incomes in December (but very little inJanuary) and that (i) fundraising duringDecember is abnormally easy and (ii) patternsof giving are somewhat unrepresentative of therest of the year. Fundraising in January can beexceptionally difficult.

The questionnaire

Consequent to a review of relevant academicliterature, a questionnaire was drafted and pre-


tested online with 20 donors to the hospicewho, upon being contacted separately at thestart of the investigation, volunteered toparticipate in the exercise. This facilitatedthe rewording of certain questionnaire items toimprove their clarity. The final version of thequestionnaire is summarised in the Appendixto the paper. It began with a section of ageneral nature that queried the respondent’sage, gender and family income category,charity donation history (see Appendix itemsA2 to A4, knowledge of hospice issues (A7 andA8), personal experience of individuals whorequired hospice care (A5 and A9) and use ofthe internet (A6 and A10). This was followedby four items concerning the person’s attitudetowards online giving. As no pre-existinginventory existed for measuring attitude toonline giving, the four items used for thispurpose were adapted from Kau et al.’s (2003)‘attitude towards online shopping’, scaleswith the replacement of the word ‘buy’ withthe words ‘donate’ or ‘give’. The items (see theAppendix section B) relate to the convenienceand time saving qualities of the internet ratherthan to deeper issues and thus are as relevantto online donating as the originals were toonline buying via a website. A factor analysis ofthe responses to the four items generated atwo-factor solution, with items B (a) (c) and (d)occupying the first factor (l¼ 2.5), (i.e. the‘convenience’ of online giving) and item B (b)(‘lack of pressure’) in the second (l¼ 1.0). TheCronbach’s a value for the three ‘convenience’items was 0.81, indicating that they reliablymeasured the same construct. Hence, the threeitems were combined into a single scale.

Section C contained five items taken directlyfrom Bennett and Gabriel (2000, p. 260) thatexplored a respondent’s level of personalinvolvement with the act of donating tocharity. All these items loaded onto a commonfactor (l¼ 3.7, a¼ .82), and hence wereconsolidated into a single scale. Section Dexamined the respondent’s general attitudetowards impulsive behaviour. It was necessaryto explore this matter in view of the possibilitythat individuals who regarded rational plannedbehaviour as socially desirable might under-


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report (irrational) impulsive actions (Dittmaret al., 1996). Hausman (2000 p. 403) citednumerous psychological studies which con-cluded that many people regard impulsivebehaviour has immature, lacking in beha-vioural control, irrational and risky. Theseelements were incorporated into the Appendixsection D2 items that explored a person’sattitude towards impulsive actions. This atti-tude is generic in nature and should inprinciple apply to any form of impulsiveaction regardless of whether it involves buyingor donating. The items loaded onto a singlefactor (l¼ 3.2, a¼ .79), and hence werecomposited into a single scale.Section E contained three items about

subjective norms, i.e. whether friends andfamily would approve of a person giving to ahospice. The operationalisation of this particu-lar construct followed Zhang et al.’s (2007)adaptation of Fishbein and Ajzen’s (1975)scales for measuring the subjective normsconstruct. Zhang et al. (2007) modified theoriginal items for use in an online shoppingcontext. As the present study involved onlinedonating rather than online buying the scaleswere reworded slightly, as shown in theAppendix. The three items loaded onto asingle factor (l¼ 2.2, a¼ .88) and so wereconsolidated. Personal impulsiveness (Appendixsection F)wasmeasured via five items taken fromRook and Fisher (1995). These scales, accord-ing to Rook and Fisher (1995 p. 306), measure‘a consumer’s tendency to act spontaneously,unreflectively, immediately and kinetically’. Asthe present study sought to measure thesespecific characteristics of spontaneous, unre-flective, immediate and kinetic behaviour inthe giving context the wordings of the itemswere not altered. It is relevant to note thatRook and Fisher’s (1995) scales were designedto measure impulsivity as a general trait thatwas not linked to any particular situation. TheRook and Fisher inventory has been success-fully applied to many aspects of impulsivebehaviour, and many studies have adapted thescales for special purposes (for examples seeHausman, 2000). Helper’s high (section F) wasassessed through five items developed and


validated by Bennett and Gabriel (1999). Thesewere originally based on the suggestions ofLaurent and Kapferer (1985). No rewordingswere necessary.The original intention was to include

questions relating to the level of the donor’strust in the organisation and the favourabilityof the person’s perception of the hospicechain’s reputation. This was abandoned,however, as the pre-test demonstrated unequi-vocally that everyone who gave to theorganisation tended to have a high degree oftrust in it and rated its reputation veryfavourably. Apart from the factual queries, allthe items were scored using five-point agree/disagree scales. Where items had been adaptedfrom other inventories the modification pro-cedure followed that recommended by Engel-land et al. (2000). Thus, the altered sales werescrutinised independently by two marketingacademics to ensure that (i) they fell wellwithin the scope of the domain of theconstruct under consideration, (ii) the out-comes anticipated from the amended scalesmatched those expected of the originals and(iii) the levels of abstraction of the initial andamended scales were the same. The constructstaken from the impulsive buying literaturewere moreover of such a nature that it isreasonable to suppose that they were mean-ingful and served equivalent functions in thedonation context (cf. Malhotra and Birks,2003). An all item factor analysis demonstratedthat all the items loaded onto the constructsthey were intended to measure, indicatingconvergent validity among the scales used tomeasure the various constructs. The finalversion of the questionnaire took between5 and 10minutes to fill-in.

Results

Descriptive results

All but seven of the 462 respondents claimedthey had seen reports about hospices ontelevision or in newspaper or magazine articles.Seventy-four per cent of the sample knew or hadknown someone who required hospice care; 58per cent specifically at St XXX. The sample was


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126 Roger Bennett

relatively evenly divided between males andfemales, although the latter were a little older onaverage (at 47 years) than the former (44 years).Sixty-two per cent of the donors selected theincome category worded ‘compared to mostpeople I know I would say my family isfinancially better-off than others’. The averagelevel of donation to the relatively emotive homepage was (at £37) somewhat higher (r< .05)than the average of £35 for the informativehome page. Impulsive donations to the emotivehome page had an average value of £28,compared to £25 for the informative home page.Responses to a questionnaire item worded ‘I

know a lot about hospices and their work’were roughly equally divided across the fiveagree/disagree categories. Hereafter theseresponses are referred to as replies to the‘knowledge of hospices’ variable. The partici-pants reported spending an average of 7 hoursa week browsing the internet and of havingmade an average of four online purchases overthe previous 6-month period. Frequencies andlevels of donations to charities in generalvaried substantially across the sample.

Antecedents of impulsive giving

Table 2 presents the results of a binary logisticregression analysis completed to identify the

Table 2. Determinants of impulse donations

B

Knowledge of hospices .41Frequency of past donations to charity .38Helper’s high .27Personal impulsiveness .24Personal involvement with charity giving .24Negative attitude towards impulsive behaviour �.23Nagelkerke pseudo-R2 .% of correct allocations 7-2LL statistic 63

Logistic regression: Dependent variable has a value of one ifplanned.Regression A: Informative home page.Regression B: Emotive home page.Wald x2 values (1 df) in parentheses.


determinants of whether a respondent hadstated that his or her donationwas impulsive orhad been planned. Separate regressions wererun for the two home page designs: informa-tive and emotive. All the variables covered bythe questionnaire were entered in a stepwisefashion and deleted if they failed to attainsignificance at .05 level. Various combinationsof candidate exploratory variables wereemployed on an experimental basis until auniform structure of results became evident. Itcan be seen from Table 2 that the same set ofvariables explained whether a donation wasplanned or impulsive in both the emotive andthe informative home page settings. Thegreatest impacts were exerted by knowledgeof hospices (confirming the view that a lowlevel of knowledge discourages impulsiveacts–see Hausman, 2000), the frequency withwhich a person had previously donated tocharities in general, (cf. Thaler, 1999) andhelper’s high (cf. Rook, 1987; Bayley andNancarrow, 1996; Hausman, 2000). Personalinvolvement with charity giving (see Bennettand Gabriel, 2000) also exerted a positive andsignificant influence, independently of help-er’s high. The composite formed for the twolatter constructs were not substantially corre-lated (R¼ .31), indicating that they constitutedseparate and distinct proclivities and hence

A B

eta ExpBeta Beta ExpBeta

(9.99) 1.51 .30 (6.37) 1.35(8.82) 1.46 .32 (6.66) 1.38(9.31) 1.31 .34 (9.99) 1.40(6.06) 1.27 .30 (6.78) 1.35(6.11) 1.27 .22 (5.89) 1.25(5.99) .79 �.21 (5.12) .8164 .617% 73%1.3 589.5

the donation was made impulsively and zero if it had been


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justifying their joint inclusion in theregressions. Personal impulsiveness had asignificantly positive impact on impulsivedonation decisions, while unfavourable atti-tudes towards impulsive behaviour exerted asignificantly negative impact (in line with theconclusion of Rook and Fisher, 1995). Again,the correlation between these two constructswas (at R¼ .29) insubstantial. Thus, a naturallyimpulsive person might still hold unfavourableopinions about acting impulsively, andvice versa.Gender was not a significant predictor of the

tendency to act impulsively, in line with anumber of prior studies that have reached thesame conclusion (for details see Dittmar et al.,1996; Beatty and Ferrell, 1998; Hausman, 2000;Zhang et al., 2007). Neither of the twodimensions of the construct ‘attitude to onlinegiving’ (‘convenience’ and ‘lack of pressure’)attained significance; nor did the compositeformed to reflect ‘subjective norms’. A closeexamination of the responses concerning thelast two constructs revealed that there wasinsufficient variation in the data for either ofthem to exert a statistically discernible effect.Nearly all the sample members agreed orstrongly agreed that friends and family wouldapprove of their donating to a hospice. Likewisethere was general agreement that online givingwas convenient and did not invoke feelings ofbeing pressurised into making a gift.

Cluster analysis

To examine in greater depth the characteristicsof the 239 respondents who stated that theirdonations had been made on impulse, aK-means cluster analysis was undertaken using

Table 3. Types of impulsive donor

Cluster ce

1 2

Frequency of donations to charity� 4 2Knowledge of hospices 4 4

�Five categories were created for this variable.


the two dimensions (knowledge of hospicesand frequency of donations) that had thehighest pairwise correlations with the tendencyto give impulsively (Kendall’s t¼ .46 and .48respectively). A three-cluster solution emerged,as shown in Table 3 and as described below.

Knowledgeable and committed givers

The first cluster comprised 101 individuals whoknew a lot about hospices prior to entering thewebsite and who gave frequently to charities ingeneral. Further analysis of these ‘knowledge-

able and committed givers’ revealed that theyspent significantly (r< .05)more time browsingthe internet than the remainder of the sampleand were more likely to respond to theinformative than to the emotively constructedhomepage.

Irregular givers

Cluster two contained 81 people who did notdonate to charity quite as often as individuals inthe first group but who did know abouthospices and their activities. The donorsconcerned were more likely than the rest ofthe sample (r< .05) to have known someonewho required hospice care or to have seen anewspaper or television report about a hospice(r< .01). This presumably contributed to theirimpulsive decisions to give while browsing thewebsite. Members of the second group alsospent more hours browsing the internet thanthe sample average (r< .05), but were moreinclined to respond to the emotively con-structed homepage. People of this nature

ntres df F-value Sig

3

3 2236 25.3 .0005 2236 38.8 .000


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128 Roger Bennett

might conveniently be called ‘irregulargivers’.

Emotive givers

A third cluster of 57 impulsive donors emergedconsisting of individuals who often gave tocharity, had extensive knowledge of hospices,and also had seen stories about hospices innewspapers or on television. These impulsivegivers weremuchmore likely to respond to theemotive homepage than were others(r< .001) and thus might reasonably bereferred to as ‘emotive givers’.

Conclusion

The donors in the present sample tended to bein early middle age, comfortably off in financialterms and to have known someone who hadbeen in a hospice. Impulsive donationsaccounted for about 15 per cent of thecharity’s total online income. The use of anemotively orientated home page increased thevolume of impulsive donations by 31 per cent,supporting the view expressed by NFG (2006)that emotively constructed web pages have ahigher probability of eliciting impulsivedonations. However, the value of the averagedonation was lower in relation to theseadditional revenues. The profile of a typicalimpulsive giver within this particular set ofrespondents involves an individual who isimpulsive by nature but who nevertheless doesnot perceive impulsive behaviour as undesir-able, who possesses prior knowledge ofhospices, who regularly donates to charitiesin general and who experiences an emotionaluplift when donating, and who feels a sense ofpersonal involvement with charity giving.Three clusters of impulsive donor werediscerned, differing according to their degreeof exposure to media stories about hospices,their responsiveness to emotive rather thaninformative web pages, and the amounts oftime they spent browsing the internet. Itappears therefore that impulsive giving hasmultiple causes, and hence that charity


managers should take into account severalconsiderations when seeking to stimulateimpulse donations.

Overall the outcomes to the study suggestthat it is certainly possible for fundraisers todiscriminate between website designs that aremore or less likely to stimulate impulsivegiving. The results are important because, byconfirming that the mode of presentation ofinformation about a good cause within awebsite possesses the capacity to affectimpulsive online donations, they offer guide-lines as to how a virtual environment can becreated in order to encourage impulsive gifts.They also indicate the need to design webpages in such a manner that browsers’potentially negative perceptions of impulsegiving can be mitigated (see below). It followsthat systemic approaches are required to thecreation of website visitor experiencesintended to stimulate impulsive giving, analo-gous to the strategic design of a retail outlet forthe purpose of encouraging impulse pur-chases. A browser’s passage towards makingan impulsive donation decision should befacilited via the on-screen presentation ofinformation and images in ways that ensurethey are noticed and then quickly acted upon.Experimentation with various combinations ofweb page elements may be required, expen-ditures on which will almost certainly beworthwhile. The same holds true for theidentification of specific images likely toencourage impulse donations among particu-lar target audiences.

An important implication of the results isthat since many impulsive givers possessed‘philanthropic’ dispositions (evidenced by thefrequency of their charity donations, theirexperiencing helper’s high and feelings ofpersonal involvement with charity giving,etc.), the attraction of such philanthropicallyorientated individuals to visit the organis-ation’s website could result in higher levelsof impulsive donations. Emailing people whoare known to have given generously to othercharities (via the purchase of lists of addressesfrom charities active in alternative fields) andinviting them to click into the hospice’s


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website might be financially worthwhile.Another broad implication of the outcomesto the study is that emotive elements need tobe woven into charity homepages so as tomaximise levels of impulse donations. Furtherimplications arising from the investigation are(i) the desirability of procuring mass publicityfor a hospice in order to disseminate knowl-edge about hospice issues, given that priorknowledge is associated with impulsivedonations (cf. Stern, 1962; Hausman, 2000)and (ii) the need to includewithin a web page amessage designed to convince people whohold unfavourable attitudes towards impulsivebehaviour that impulsive actions are in factjustified if the circumstances of a situation sodemand (cf. Rook and Fisher, 1995). It isessential that browsers do not feel guilty aboutmaking impulsive gifts. Thus, they must bepersuaded that impulsive donations actuallyrepresent a rational alternative to time-con-suming decision processes. This might beachieved by emphasising the trustworthycharacter of a charity showing vividly theeffectiveness of its work with beneficiaries.Images of a desperately urgent need thatrequires instant assistance may be useful inthis respect, as might the provision to potentialimpulsive donors of graphs, lists, comparisontables and other decision aids of a visual nature.The rationality of impulsive giving should bestressed at appropriate points within a web-site, possibly including references to thehedonistic benefits of impulsive giving.An implication of the finding that 15 per cent

of all online donations to the organisation weremade on impulse is that (considering thesubstantial financial value of this source ofincome), devices for encouraging impulsivegiving should be incorporated into websites.Devices of this nature include the offer of freeentry to a raffle if a browser makes an on-the-spot donation, access to an online computergame and small tangible rewards such as keyrings, leather wallets, etc. in return fordonations exceeding certain thresholds (seeBennett, 2008). These devices might beselected with regard to the three types ofimpulsive giver identified by the cluster


analysis. It could be that the typology emergingfrom the latter can provide a basis for futureresearch, the outcomes to whichmight suggestappropriate marketing tactics for influencingeach category of impulsive giver.This study contributed to what is presently

known about impulsive behaviour by examin-ing the phenomenon in a context, i.e.impulsive online charity giving, not previouslyinvestigated by researchers in the field. Theissue of online charity donating is highlyrelevant for fundraising managers consequentto the large rise in online giving known to haveoccurred in recent years and the likelihood thatonline giving will accelerate in the future; atrend that parallels the increase in both onlineshopping and general consumer involvementwith the internet that has taken place and willcontinue over the coming decade. At themanagerial level the research added to con-temporary knowledge of the effectiveness, inpractical terms, of emotive as opposed to infor-mative online advertising messages. The theor-etical value of the study lay in its application toa fresh domain of various hypotheses derivedfrom pre-existing academic literature onimpulsive behaviour. It is known that everyoneacts impulsively on occasion (according tosome authorities up to half of all consumerpurchases may be made on impulse) and thatimpulsive behaviour is more common amonginternet users than among people who shop(or donate) within physical environments. Tothe extent that overlaps exist between thestimuli that trigger impulsive online donations(emotive messages, prior knowledge about agood cause, favourable attitudes towards impul-sive actions, tendency to experience emotionaluplift, etc.) and those that are likely to induce adhoc gifts via other media (street box collectionsand so on), the implications of the outcomes tothe current investigation become quite important.Notwithstanding the above, a number of

limitations apply to the study. Less than amajority of the people approached agreed totake part in the investigation, although theresponse rate was at least as good as thatnormally achieved in email surveys. It wasnecessary to keep the questionnaire as short as


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130 Roger Bennett

possible in order to induce recipients toparticipate. This meant that each constructcould be explored using only a few (normallyfive) items. Nevertheless, subsequent factorand reliability analyses of the constructscovered by the study generated unidimen-sional solutions in all but one of the cases,suggesting that the measures employed wereadequate. The investigation involved a singleorganisation and a single type of charity. It wasnot possible to experiment with themakeup ofthe website of the single host organisation,because its contents were necessarily decidedby the organisation (in the context of attainingthe charity’s overall goals) and not by theresearcher. However the two homepagedesigns adopted by the charity in 2006/2007clearly differentiated between emotive andinformative approaches.Another limitation of the study was its use of

scales for personal impulsiveness and attitudestowards online giving that were based on pre-existing instruments developed to measureconsumer buying behaviour rather than onlinegiving. Likely relationships between the con-tents of these prior instruments and therequirements of scales that are capable ofmeasuring relevant constructs in the domain ofonline donating have already been mentioned.However, it was not possible to test empiri-cally these supposed connections within theconfines of the present study, and it isnecessary to acknowledge that scales dedi-cated entirely to online impulsive givingbehaviour and devised ab initiomight containdifferent and/or additional items to those listedin the Appendix to the paper. The develop-ment and validation of such scales wouldrepresent a valuable area for further research.Other useful fields for future research mightinclude the examination of additional forms ofweb page design involving systematic vari-ations in particular elements. The investigationof impulse giving decisions in relation to othertypes of charity (children’s causes, disasterrelief and so on) would also be valuable, as itmay be that emotional appeals are moreeffective for increasing impulse donations forcertain kinds of issue. Another fruitful avenue


for further research would be the assessmentof the effectiveness of different policies andprocedures for converting impulse donors intolonger term supporters of a charitable organ-isation.

Biographical note

Dr Roger Bennett is a professor of marketingand the director of the Centre for Research inMarketing at London Metropolitan University.His main research interests lie in the area ofnon-profit and voluntary sector marketing,especially in relation to the advertising imageryemployed by charitable organisations.

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Appendix: The questionnaire

A. About the respondent

1. Three items for gender, age and household income category.

2. Items exploring the frequency of a person’s donations to charity (by post; by telephone; online; by

standing order).

3. Amount of donations to charity (approximate average amount per year).

4. How many times in the past the respondent had donated to hospices (zero, once, 2 to 4 times, etc.).

5. Had the respondent personally known anyone who needed hospice care?

6. Use of the internet (average hours per week spent browsing; frequency of online shopping

[approximate number of purchases over previous 6 months]).

7. Did the respondent have a large amount of knowledge about hospices before he or she entered the

website?

8. Had the person seen or read a lot about hospices in newspaper or magazine articles or on TV?

9. Has the person known anyone who was (or is) a patient at St XXX?

10. What was the respondent’s intention when he or she entered the hospice’s website?

(a) To make a donation.

(b) To learn more about the organisation’s work.

(c) Both of the above.

(d) To satisfy general curiosity.

B. Attitude towards online giving

(a) The internet is a very convenient way to donate.

(b) I like to donate online because I do not feel pressurised into making a gift.

(c) Giving online saves me time.

(d) Using the internet is the most effective way to find information about something.

C. Personal involvement with charity giving

(a) Giving to charity means a great deal to me.

(b) Giving to charity is a vitally important part of my life.

(c) I am deeply interested in the work of the charities I support even when I am not able to make a

donation.

(d) I feel heavily involved with the good causes to which I donate.

(e) I am fascinated by the work of the charities I support.

D. Attitudes towards impulsive behaviour

1. In normal circumstances I do not believe in acting on the spur of the moment.

2. Three items asking whether the respondent regarded impulsive behaviour as immature, irrational

and showing that a person lacks self-control.

3. Subjective norms

1. People who matter to me would strongly approve of my making a donation to a hospice.

2. Members of my family would strongly approve of my making a donation to a hospice.

3. My friends would strongly approve of my making a donation to a hospice.

4. Personal impulsiveness

(a) I often do things without thinking.

(b) I often feel like doing things on the spur of the moment.

(c) I carefully plan the things I do (reverse scored).

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Mar.–June 2009

DOI: 10.1002/cb


(d) ‘Just do it’ describes my attitude to getting things done.

(e) I can be very reckless at times.

5. Helper’s high

(f) Donating to charity gives me a lot of pleasure.

(g) I would feel guilty if I did not give money to charity.

(h) I feel uplifted after making a donation to charity.

(i) I obtain deep inherent satisfaction from giving to charity.

(j) Giving to charity makes my own life better.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, Mar.–June 2009

DOI: 10.1002/cb

134 Roger Bennett

Impulsive donation decisions during online browsing of charity websites

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