Nostalgia Drives Donations: The Power of Charitable Appeals Based on Emotions and Intentions

John B. Ford and Altaf Merchant

The authors find that appeals for charity that evoke personal nostalgia will have an effect on the charitable-donation intentions of consumers.

Nostalgia Drives Donations: The Power of Charitable Appeals Based on Emotions and Intentions

John B. Ford

Old Dominion University

Altaf Merchant

University of Washington Tacoma

INTRODUCTION

Charitable organizations in the United States have found it increasingly difficult to raise needed funds from donors (Eikenberry, 2005). This has been true in other countries as well. Over the last 10 years, charities in the United Kingdom also have faced the same challenges(Sargeant, Ford, and West, 2000). There are a number of reasons for this. First, the pool of donors is shrinking. In the United Kingdom, the number of donors in 2008/2009...

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