MESSAGE TYPE STRATEGY IN CHARITABLE FUNDRAISING

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In appeals for donations, some charities highlight why their programs are important or abstract meanings that individuals' contributions can have. On the other hand, some other charities highlight how their programs are implemented or specific actions that are to be made. Drawing on construal level theory, we posit that abstract, “why” laden appeals will be more persuasive than concrete, “how” laden appeals when psychological distance (via physical distance) is high (vs. low).
One experiment was conducted to test this premise. Specifically, we examined whether the location where the programs of a nonprofit organization were run was far (i.e., a foreign country) or near (i.e., domestically) would moderate the persuasiveness of abstract versus concrete messages. In terms of the procedure, participants were first asked to read a message from a nonprofit organization helping children suffering from rare diseases in their own country or in foreign countries. Then, they indicated the extent to which they were willing to help the nonprofit. To manipulate the message type, we varied the headline as well as the content of the message so as to make on version construed at a low level and the other at a high level. Further, to investigate a moderating role of disease types, we measured the changes in response to when disease names are suggested more specifically due to the variation in the degree of familiarity to the charity subject.
The results of this experiment supported our prediction on the fit effect between physical distance and message type. To be specific, when the appeal was for a foreign cause, abstract messages generated a higher willingness to help the nonprofit. Conversely, when the appeal was for a local cause, concrete messages generated a higher willingness to help the nonprofit. These results indicate construal fit effect in a charitable giving context. Furthermore, we investigated a moderating role of disease types given that such fit effects can be stronger among low- (vs. highly) familiarity of disease. We observed a significant three-way interaction involving the degree of familiarity.