Charities: how important is performance to donors?

Abstract

Purpose

This paper seeks to develop insights into the charity selection criteria used by individual donors, and the information that charities provide to individual donors.

Design/methodology/approach

Charities are defined as organizations involved in health, international aid, wellbeing, and nature and environment. In this paper the main focus is on one type of charity stakeholder; the individual donor. The research is undertaken through an internet survey among Dutch donors and through interviews at eight case studies of Dutch charities.

Findings

Based on the internet survey it can be concluded that effectiveness is seen as important, but not as the major criterion in the selection of a charity. The case studies show that charities do not have standardized reporting systems in order to inform their donors on their performances

Practical implications

Based on this research it can be concluded that there is a need for management of charities to develop both measures of internal efficiency and of external effectiveness.

Originality/value

The literature review identified a lack of empirical data available on the charity sector; this paper tries to fill that gap.

Citation

van Iwaarden, J., van der Wiele, T., Williams, R. and Moxham, C. (2009), "Charities: how important is performance to donors?", International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1108/02656710910924143