Online donation behavior in nonprofit organizations: The role of congruent processing styles

Abstract With the advent of technology, donors are increasingly donating via online channels. This shift deems it necessary for nonprofit organizations to better understand the online donor behavior. As such, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate if nonprofit organizations are perceived differently in terms of their cognitive and affective natures. Then, we examine how different consumer processing styles, i.e. cognitive and affective, interact with consumer perceptions of nonprofit cognitive/affective orientations in influencing their donation intentions. Our results indicate that consumers with a high need for cognition are more willing to donate to predominantly cognitive nonprofit organizations, while those with high need for emotion are more willing to donate to predominantly affective nonprofit organizations. Based on these results, we suggest that nonprofit organizations can garner more donations if they request funds from donors whose processing styles are congruent with the organization. Additional recommendations for future research are provided.