Personal Values and Choice of Charitable Cause: An Exploration of Donors’ Giving Behavior

Research shows that personal values influence the decision to donate to charity. However, studies of values and charitable giving have not yet examined how refined values relate to an individual donor’s choice of charitable cause. In this article, we examine relations between donors’ value priorities and their support for nine different types of charitable cause. We do this across two samples of donors from Australia and the United States. We show clear evidence of refined value motivations for donations to environmental, animal welfare, religious or spiritual, and international aid charities, as well as giving to other types of causes (i.e., arts or culture, education, health services, community or welfare services, and sporting clubs). Our findings suggest that the study of donor’s values can offer a more nuanced understanding of what motivates their choice of charitable cause, with the potential to inform fundraising research and practice.