Causes and consequences of donor perceptions of the quality of the relationship marketing activities of charitable organisations

Abstract

Although relationship marketing has been adopted extensively and enthusiastically by UK charitable fundraising organisations, the operational assessment of what actually constitutes ‘good quality’ relationship marketing by charities has been overlooked. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the perceptions of the quality of charities' relationship marketing activities reported by a sample of 141 known regular supporters of charities. Three forms of relationship marketing were considered: relationship advertising, direct marketing, and ‘two-way marketing contacts’ (public relations events, open days, and other two-way marketing communications). The calibre of each of these genres of relationship marketing was evaluated in terms of five criteria: message relevance, interactive engagement, and the arousal of feelings of commitment, benevolence and trust. A donor's overall perception of the quality of an organisation's relationship marketing was conceptualised as a latent variable formed (rather than reflected) by the individual's opinions of the attributes of the three above mentioned methods of relationship marketing. Connections between the latent relationship marketing quality variable and (i) the levels and frequencies of supporters' donations, and (ii) donors' future intentions to continue giving to the charity, were then examined. The model was estimated using the technique of partial least squares.