Profiling Donors of Blood, Money, and Time

• Published date: 01 March 2015
• Author: Michel Clement,Edlira Shehu,Elena Felchle,Ann‐Christin Langmaack
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21126
• Date: 01 March 2015

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N M  L, vol. 25, no. 3, Spring 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21126

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence to: Edlira Shehu, University of Southern Denmark, Department of Marketing and Management, Niels

Bohrs Allé 1, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark. Email: edsh@sam.sdu.dk.

Profi ling Donors of Blood, Money,

and Time

A SIMULTANEOUS COMPARISON OF THE GERMAN POPULATION

Edlira Shehu,1 Ann-Christin Langmaack,2 Elena Felchle,2 Michel Clement2

1University of Southern Denmark, 2University of Hamburg

Understanding donor profiles is crucial for donor relationship management. Whereas pre-

vious research has focused on profiling blood, money, or time donor segments separately, we

define seven donor profiles based on their former donation behavior for blood, money, and

time donation and compare them to non-donors. Relying on representative data from the

German Socio Economic Panel, we use an extensive set of characteristics that include soci-

odemographic, psychographic, health-related, and geographical measures and simultane-

ously investigate profiles of donors for single and multiple donation forms and non-donors

by means of a multinomial logistic model. Our results reveal valuable insights for donor

acquisition and retention strategies of nonprofit organizations along the identified profiling

characteristics of donor segments. By this, our findings help nonprofit organization manag-

ers to better target single and multiple donors across three donation forms.

Keywords: donor segments, donor relationship management, donor profiles, donor

typologies

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS (NPOS) THAT SEEK VOLUNTEERS, money, or blood

donors are facing fi ercer competition (Naskrent and Siebelt 2011). In the United States, for

example, the number of NPOs increased from 12,000 in 1940 to approximately 1.23 mil-

lion in 2005, although the number of donors has been increasing underproportionally to the

number of NPOs (Venable and others 2005).

As a response to the increasingly competitive market environment, NPOs are continually

adopting marketing instruments (Eikenberry 2009; Sargeant, Hudson, and West 2008; Sosin

2012). Specifi cally, NPOs are aggressively relying on direct mail marketing strategies lead-

ing to the NPO sector to be among the top fi ve industries employing direct mailings (Feld

and others 2013). For example, in November 2006, more than fi fteen German NPOs sent

more than one million direct mail articles to (potential) donors (Hermes 2007). Because of

the competitive donor relationship activities employed by NPOs and to natural restrictions

of donors’ time, money, and blood budgets, NPOs engaged in diff erent forms of giving are

increasingly competing with each other for gaining donors’ attention and loyalty. Indeed,

Nonprofi t Management & Leadership DOI: 10.1002/nml

270 SHEHU, LANGMAACK, FELCHLE, CLEMENT

studies have shown that donors’ main reason for lapsing after their fi rst donations is switch-

ing to other donation forms (Sargeant 2001).

Against this background, a thorough understanding of (potential) donor profiles across

diff erent donation forms is essential because of its importance for successful targeting and

relationship donor management (Naskrent and Siebelt 2011; Einolf 2011; Meslin, Rooney,

and Wolf 2008), especially because former donor engagement for diff erent donation forms is

related to donor loyalty (Sargeant 2001). Although donor profi ling for single donation forms

that is, blood, money, or volunteering, has been addressed by several studies in the past, only

single studies (for example, Houston 2006) analyze drivers of diff erent donation types. Still,

even these single existing studies that investigate diff erent forms of donation analyze each

donation form in a separate model. Consequently, these studies are not able to diff erentiate

between segment profi les for donors who are engaged only into one form of donation (for

example, blood doors) and those engaged into more than one donation form (for example,

blood and money donors). A diff erentiated analysis of donor segments based on their engage-

ment for one or multiple donation forms becomes even more important in light of recent

empirical studies evidencing that a remarkable portion of donors engages in more than one

form of donation (Bekkers 2006; Priller and Schupp 2011).

From a research perspective, diff erentiating between single-donation and multiple-donation

donor segments based on past donation behavior and investigating their profi les simulta-

neously provides additional insights that cannot be revealed in case each donation form is

investigated separately. Profi les of individuals engaged in multiple donation forms are likely

to diff er from those of the broader single-donor segment. On the one hand, multiple dona-

tion engagement is positively related to higher donor commitment (Sargeant and Woodliff e

2005), which is essential for donor retention and loyalty (Sargeant 2001). On the other

hand, multiple donors face time and resource limitations. Consequently, it is important to

understand how profi les of these “multiple donors” diff er from those of single-form donors

or non-donors.

From a managerial perspective, this question is also substantial for effi cient donor targeting:

Both donor retention and new donor acquisition require that segment profi les are described

as accurately as possible. For example, from the perspective of blood donation services inter-

ested in new donor acquisition, grouping all individuals who do not donate blood into a

non-donor group is insuffi cient because subsegments may exist that engaged formerly or

still engage in other donation forms such as monetary donation, voluntary work (time dona-

tion), or both.  ese individuals may have higher adeptness to donation in general and con-

sequently to blood donation. Indeed, past donation behavior is a strong predictor of future

donation behavior because prosocial behavior becomes a habit that drives the likelihood

of re-donation (Rosen and Sims 2011). In addition, prior behavior has a self-commitment

impact that increases the probability of a future donation, even in other donation forms

(Monin and Miller 2001; Mount 1996).  ese arguments suggest that specifi c donor rela-

tionship programs, depending on donors’ engagement for diff erent donation forms, can be

advantageous for targeting strategies of NPOs. Especially NPOs engaged in multiple dona-

tion forms (for example, the Red Cross, which collects blood and money and seeks volun-

teers) could strongly benefi t from diff erentiated targeting strategies for donor subsegments

based on their former behavior for donation forms.

Our article addresses profi ling of (former) donors engaged in single and multiple donation

forms and contributes to the current scientific discourse as follows: (1) We examine the