Encouraging Repeated Memorial Donations to a Scholarship Fund: An Experimental Test of Permanence Goals and Anniversary Acknowledgements

Abstract:Encouraging repeated memorial gifts can be challenging. Donors commonly view such donations as a one-time, funeral-related event. Further, donors may care little about the underlying charitable cause, such as the decedent's alma mater or favored scholarship fund. Research in mortality salience and bereavement suggests that the death of a loved one may generate a desire for permanence in memorialization, particularly during important anniversaries. Different memorial scholarship fund gift acknowledgement messages were randomly assigned to 10 groups totaling 4,873 participants. Adding a permanence component to an educational scholarship fundraising goal and timing the acknowledgement near the death anniversary significantly increased willingness to make a second memorial gift in the scenarios presented. Adding a permanence component also increased the estimated gift size. Although neither strategy increased sympathy for the charity's work, both increased charitable giving motivations of family obligation, sense of loss, and potential regret from failing to make a second gift.