Public Agenda is a nonpartisan opinion research and civic engagement organization helping Americans explore and understand critical issues since 1975. In a recently published report entitled The Charitable Impulse, it concluded that "American donors are passionate and positive about the charities and nonprofits they support."
Although the report focuses on "the strong negative reactions when nonprofits adopt big-business type marketing and sales techniques," it also draws some conclusions that fully support what we have been saying all along. "Typical giving," the report says, "is based on personal experience and emotional connections." Most small donors appear to base their giving on a gut-level interest in a cause (the mission) and a faith in the people involved.
Other findings include the fact that for most donors, the work of "the nonprofit sector is almost entirely defined as the work of charitable human service organizations." Furthermore, small donors generally see "small, local nonprofit organizations as the engine of efforts to improve local civic life," which is why we are not seeing a fall in donations at the local level as a result of the recent national and international disasters. The report went on to say that "most donors seem to admire and trust local nonprofits more than government and more than 'far away' national charities."
You can download the report at http://www.publicagenda.org/research/pdfs/charitable_impulse.pdf.
