Multichannel Philanthropists versus Cash Contributors: Segmenting Charitable Donors in the Digital Age

Recent years have witnessed a radical shift towards digital charitable giving. Existing studies typically investigate a single donation channel, coming at the expense of a more holistic understanding of donor channel preferences. The current study seeks to ascertain if donors can be clustered based on their preferred digital and non-digital donation channels.

An online survey with a nationally representative sample of 626 UK residents explored preferred donation channels alongside other socio-demographic, behavioural, psychographic and values-based segmentation criteria.

Adopting a post-hoc segmentation strategy with k-means cluster analysis, four distinct donor segments emerged. Whilst two segments displayed multichannel donation tendencies, the others contained more digitally hesitant individuals. Those with digital donation preferences displayed higher levels of sectoral trust and sought greater social value from their donations, but the aggregate data suggests an overarching preference for donating cash. These findings extend our limited academic understanding of digital donor behaviour, specifically donation channel choice.