Empirical study of donors´ intention to generate positive word-of-mouth: The influence of donation process participation and charitable cause

Facing the public credibility crisis, NPOs lack effective channel to accumulate funds from individuals. And as a special product category, charitable giving causes higher perceived risk than other product categories. The positive word-of-mouth (abbreviated as WoM) from donor can reduce the perceived risk and effectively broaden the publicity and fund-raising channel of NPOs. This paper is an empirical research through 301 questionnaires. The result shows donors´ positive WoM intention will be influenced by the participation level of donation process, importance of charitable cause and donors´ satisfaction. Moreover, donation process participation and charitable cause can directly affect donors´ positive WoM intention and also influence the intention through donors´ satisfaction. This study will enrich current studies on the factors that affect donors´ intentions of WoM and provide valuable suggestion for NPO´s management strategy of WoM.