Differences between students and non‐students' willingness to donate to a charitable organisation

This paper reports on a comparative study of students and non‐students that investigates which psycho‐social factors influence intended donation behaviour within a single organisation that offers multiple forms of donation activity. Additionally, the study examines which media channels are more important to encourage donation. A self‐administered survey instrument was used and a sample of 776 respondents recruited. Logistic regressions and a Chow test were used to determine statistically significant differences between the groups. For donating money, importance of charity and attitude towards charity influence students, whereas only importance of need significantly influences non‐students. For donating time, no significant influences were found for non‐students, however, importance of charity and attitude towards charity were significant for students. Importance of need was significant for both students and non‐students for donating goods, with importance of charity also significant for students. Telephone and television channels were important for both groups. However, Internet, email and short messaging services were more important for students, providing opportunities to enhance this group's perceptions of the importance of the charity, and the importance of the need, which ultimately impacts on their attitudes towards the charity. These differences highlight the importance of charities focussing on those motivations and attitudes that are important to a particular target segment and communicating through appropriate media channels for these segments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.