Using Mobile Donation to Promote International Fundraising: A Situational Technology Acceptance Model

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs donation through mobile devices becomes globally available, this study aims to promote its adoption and facilitate international fundraising, primarily by examining people’s motivations to make a mobile donation – a donation made by text message. Employing key variables from the situational theory of problem solving and the technology acceptance model, this study proposes an emerging Situational Technology Acceptance Model (STAM). A nationwide survey of 994 American respondents in Spring 2016 and a two-step structural equation modeling process empirically supported STAM. By digging into the nuances of people’s situational motivations to solve a problem and their attitudes toward using a new technology, STAM found that the respondents’ donation intentions were more associated with their technological attitudes. Finally, this study uses awareness of mobile donation and mobile donation intention as two dimensions to segment mobile phone users to active, aware, latent, and non-publics, and offers practical advice for nonprofits to better target their fundraising efforts.