The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, qut

Chapter 2: Everyday givers

Dr Ted Flack

‘Everyday’ givers

The literature on the ‘everyday giver’ in Australia is informed by a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, economics, behavioural science and fundraising practice. In the widest sense, gift giving, like a greeting and farewell, is a ritual practice through which the current value of a relationship is communicated and maintained. Gifts function as a ‘relationship signal’, expressing love, caring and trust. But gifts can also be the expression of normative ideas and tastes which carry meaning about both the giver and recipient (Mauss and Cunnison 1970; Sargeant and Woodliffe 2007b).

Altruistic or philanthropic gifts are therefore a subset of all types of gifts but there is no ‘bright line’ between what may be classified as a transfer or gift between family members at one end of a continuum, and an anonymous gift to a charity at the other (Berking 1999).

Key authors on the demographic and psychographic profile of ‘everyday’ givers include: René Bekkers, Director, Center for Philanthropic Studies, University of Amsterdam; Pamala Wiepking, Erasmus University Rotterdam; and Adrian Sargeant, Director of the Centre for Sustainable Philanthropy at the University of Plymouth.

In seeking to understand gift giving motivations generally, researchers have spent much energy debating whether givers ever give for purely altruistic reasons in the face of evidence that benefits of various types may be gained from giving (Sargeant and Jay 2004). Also, some types of giving may not be purely voluntary but instead ‘conditioned by patterns of obligation’, such as giving that occurs within extended families or cultural groups (see for example Everatt et al. 2005, 290). As well as such giver-related factors, a suite of variables external to the giver appear to act as triggers for giving. For example, being asked to give—especially by someone who is known and trusted by the individual—can prompt giving (American Demographics 1996, as cited in Madden 2006), as can asking for a smaller rather than larger gift (Clotfelter 1985). The intersection of the individual’s internal processes and the positioning of the community organisation in the wider community are also relevant. Supphellen and Nelson (2001) highlight the importance of the individual’s decision-making process when receiving direct mail from a charitable organisation; the likelihood of giving increases where an individual assesses their recognition of the community organisation and consciously or subconsciously determines how receptive they are to the request for support.

Scholars have suggested that both sociodemographic factors, especially income level, life experience, age and marital status, and personal and social behaviours, are influential in giving behaviour (for example, see Lasby and McIver 2004; White 1986). Religious involvement has also been shown to be a substantial driving force in ‘inspiring and organising’ giving (Everatt et al. 2005, 290) and is highly relevant to individuals in the United States (US) in particular, but also in countries such as South Africa, Canada and Australia (ACOSS 2005; Hall 2006; Hall et al. 2009; Lyons 1994). Apart from explaining why some individuals have a predisposition to give or not, scholars have investigated motivations for giving, with five main categories emerging (Sargeant and Jay 2004, 29-32):

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  self-interest, such as self-esteem, recognition, reciprocation, memorialising loved ones and tax breaks
  
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  empathy or giving out of distress for the suffering of others
  
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  sympathy or the individual’s belief that it is inappropriate for others to suffer in the way they are perceived to be
  
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  social justice, whereby giving helps to restore faith in a just/equitable world, and
  
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  conformity, where giving is influenced by beliefs within groups.
  

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  awareness of need
  
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  solicitation
  
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  costs and benefits
  
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  altruism
  
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  reputation
  
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  psychological benefits
  
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  values, and
  
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  efficacy.
  

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  affiliation with religion
  
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  stronger religious involvement
  
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  a higher age
  
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  a higher level of education
  
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  income and wealth
  
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  home ownership
  
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  a better subjective financial position
  
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  being married
  
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  having children
  
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  having a paid job
  
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  higher cognitive ability
  
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  having prosocial personality characteristics such as empathy, and
  
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  growing up with parents with higher education, income, religiosity and volunteering activity.
  

A note of caution, however, is appropriate in that estimates of giving in Australia do not distinguish between the gifts of ‘everyday’ givers and those of ‘planned’ givers (i.e. those who consider carefully their giving as opposed to acting spontaneously). Indeed, it is likely that some of those that make planned gifts to charities also make unplanned gifts to other charities and vice versa. Lyons and Nivison-Smith (2006) and Bekkers and Wiepking (2011a) found that there was a positive correlation between those who give to religious organisations (often associated with ‘pledged’ giving to weekly collections during church attendance) and those who also give to non-religious organisations, suggesting that givers can be both ‘regular’ givers and ‘planned’ givers.

While there are no known data-sets that focus purely on ‘everyday givers’; that is, those individual givers who choose not to make any ‘planned’ gifts, a growing body of knowledge is available about the levels of individual giving in Australia.