Abstract
Nonprofit organizations need loyal donors to accomplish their mission and goals. However, organizations lose up to 60% of their first-time donors. Therefore, a deeper understanding of the determinants of donor loyalty is necessary. This study tests whether actual self-congruence, ideal self-congruence, and functional congruence strengthen the tie between nonprofit organizations and donors. In addition, and as an extension of the self-congruence theory, issue involvement is added as a moderator variable. The study results show that ideal self-congruence and functional congruence have a positive effect on donor loyalty, while actual self-congruence does not affect donor loyalty. Moreover, the study results show that issue involvement strengthens (mitigates) the effect of actual self-congruence (ideal self-congruence) on donor loyalty. Regarding the relationship between functional congruence and donor loyalty, issue involvement has no moderating effect. Based on the empirical findings, this study discusses academic implications and presents managerial implications for fundraisers and nonprofit organizations.
Highlights
There is a broad consensus that nonprofit organizations need loyal donors because without these donations, nonprofit organizations would have much fewer or no resources with which to achieve their mission and goals (e.g., Lee and Chang 2007; Traeger and Alfes 2019; Wymer and Rundle-Thiele 2016)
Malär et al (2011) showed in their research article that there is no unconditional effect of ideal self-congruence on individual behavior while there is a strong effect of actual self-congruence
Zhu et al (2019) found that the effects of actual and ideal self-congruence depend on the type of brand
Summary
There is a broad consensus that nonprofit organizations need loyal donors because without these donations, nonprofit organizations would have much fewer or no resources with which to achieve their mission and goals (e.g., Lee and Chang 2007; Traeger and Alfes 2019; Wymer and Rundle-Thiele 2016). For-profit organizations have been using this approach to influence consumer behavior positively for decades (Japutra et al 2019; Nienstedt et al 2012; Park et al 2010; Sirgy et al 1991). Some organizations advertise their brands by cooperating with celebrities to match consumers’ ideal self-concept, while other organizations use “common people” in their ads to match their brand personality with consumers’ actual self-concept (Malär et al 2011)
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