It is a match! How donors and nonprofit organizations come together on a matching donation platform

Abstract

Online donation platforms have grown increasingly established in the past two decades. Among substantial research into donation-based crowdfunding platforms in general, no studies address the intention to use matching donation platforms. The latter refers to a hypothetical product, not currently available on the market. It represents an extension of conventional donation platforms, aligning donors' preferences with NPOs and projects present on the platform. Drawing on the technology acceptance model (TAM), this exploratory study empirically investigates factors that influence the intention to use a matching donation platform. It also extends the TAM to include trust and donation processing factors and considers the perspectives of both donors and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) engaged in fundraising. The data include an online survey of 458 donors and 112 NPOs in Germany. The findings indicate that all factors, including trust and donation processing, within the extended TAM exert a significant impact on the intention to use a matching donation platform, and attitude toward the platform represents the most influential factor. This article also provides entrepreneurial recommendations for how a matching donation platform can be implemented and used in practice. For example, a matching donation platform should aim at younger donor target groups and provide NPOs with suitable options for processing donations.