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avoidance that may help attract and cultivate new donors can also perpetuate injustices (Hansen 2018). Dramaturgy suggests the importance of expressive competence – of finding the way to take donors' perspectives and understand likely impressions while also being honest and true to mission that is community centered. This skillful balance on the part of fundraisers paves the road to cooperative action.
Conclusion
Many theories address why people engage in philanthropy as donors, and these also inform fundraising. For example, empirical evidence shows that being asked is key to the act of making gifts (Adloff 2016). Less attention has focused on theories of how fundraising functions, and its social implications. As Russell James III (2017) noted, theoretical guidance is perhaps less important for quick, transactional models of fundraising, but can contribute greatly to aspects of fundraising that rely on developing longer term, nuanced relationships.
The process of developing and testing theoretical frameworks to help understand fundraising is ongoing (Mack, Kelly, and Wilson 2016). Many of these theories are extensions or refinements of theories originally used in other situations. Systems theory is a reminder that organizations are part of a greater environment requiring boundary spanning to ensure adequate financial resources. Resource dependence theory highlights potential power implications of revenue portfolios. Gift theory examines the social exchange aspects of philanthropy, indicating that fundraisers and donors live in a relational society. Identification theory looks to the importance of affirming a donor's sense of self and the role of communities of participation in expanding how a donor identifies with others. Dramaturgy emphasizes the importance of symbolic meaning, and how fundraisers can encourage an atmosphere and framing that aligns the importance of the cause with the donor's interests.
Taken together, these theories undergird the importance of relationships in fundraising. They imply a duty of care to donors, to treat them as whole people with personal values and preferences. They also imply a duty of care to the organizations and those they serve.
Discussion Questions
1 What are some ways in which reciprocity plays a role in how fundraisers and donors interact? Provide specific examples from your experience.
2 How can fundraisers activate a donor's identity with regard to other donors? To an organization's clients? To the organization itself? What theories apply?
3 We tend to find it easy to support others who share a social identity. What implications might this have for fundraising practice? Are any of those implications in tension with an organization's mission or other social concerns? If so, how might fundraisers and administrators mitigate those tensions?
Application Exercises
1 Make a table of different fundraising functions and/or solicitation vehicles, such as annual fund mailings, major gift solicitation, and so on. Place the theories from this chapter under the headings for the situations in which they might be most useful. List at least one new tactic based on the theories in this chapter.
2 Assume you work for a university. You are planning to meet with a donor who is an alumna of the English department and has established a scholarship fund for nontraditional students in honor of her mother. Her graduating class is nearing its 35th reunion. What topics or ideas do you want to include in your planned discussion? Use at least two theories from this chapter to analyze your choices for the meeting plan.
CHAPTER FIVE THE JOY OF GIVING
By Sara Konrath
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
~Acts 20:35
“Most people would rather give than get affection.”
~Aristotle
The belief that it is better to give than to receive has a long history, with examples from ancient religious texts and philosophers. The earliest known scientific evidence, from the early 1970s, discovered that people learned faster when doing so helped someone avoid suffering – such altruism was motivating and rewarding. This chapter reviews scientific research on how giving time and money affects givers.
The chapter will help readers to:
Understand how giving time and money affects psychological, social, and physical health outcomes.
Learn about research on the joy of giving across cultures and across the lifespan.
Be aware of benefits of giving even during challenging times.
Know some potential limits of giving, and how to maximize the joy of giving in oneself and others.
Fundraising professionals facilitate a significant portion of donations to nonprofits. Fundraisers match people's values with opportunities to give, and in doing so, help to feed the hungry, take care of the sick, share musical and cultural experiences, and educate generations of students. When fundraisers help givers give, they may not realize that they are bringing these givers more happiness and better health. By being mindful of these benefits of giving, fundraisers can see themselves as givers too, and can personally experience the joy of giving.
Psychological Outcomes
Many of us believe that if we only had more time and money, we would be happier. In fact, there is much research finding that giving away our time and money makes us happier, even though after giving we have less for ourselves (for reviews, see Hui et al. 2020; Konrath 2014).
Research finds that volunteers have higher happiness, life satisfaction, and psychological well‐being than those who do not volunteer. Of course, volunteers are different than nonvolunteers in a number of ways that could explain why they are happier. For example, they tend to have higher incomes and more social and psychological resources than nonvolunteers. But most research finds that these differences do not fully explain the happiness effects of giving time. Even when scientists statistically control for these variables, the results remain similar.
Similarly, lots of research finds that giving away money also promotes more well‐being in givers. There are also similar benefits for everyday kind acts like helping strangers, sharing with neighbors, and supporting loved ones. For example, a meta‐analysis that examined 201 studies with 198,213 participants found that various types of giving and helping were associated with higher well‐being (Hui et al. 2020).
The best evidence for the causal effects of giving uses a randomized control trial (RCT), a method that is also used to test if a new drug or vaccine works. Scientists start with a group of people who are pretty similar at the beginning, and then ask half of these people to give time or money. The other half are in the control group (e.g., spend money or do kind acts for themselves). For example, one study asked participants to spend a small amount of money (either $5 or $20) on themselves versus another person, and then the researchers measured participants' mood at the end of the day. People who spent their money on someone else were happier than those who spent it on themselves, regardless of the amount of money spent.
Randomized control trials consistently find that giving money, volunteering time, and doing kind acts all lead to more psychological benefits for givers, compared to control groups.
Does the Joy of Giving Last?
Research finds that giving to oneself quickly loses its luster, whereas giving to others has lasting happiness‐boosting power. Many enjoyable activities lose some of their pleasure when repeated. But when researchers compared the experience of giving money away repeatedly (up to 10 times) versus the experience