The theorisation of fraud has largely been developed in the for-profit sector, and the paper extends this to the not-for-profit sector. Motivated by social control theory, we adopt a qualitative ...approach to assess the views of key charity stakeholders (social control agents) of charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales about fraud. We find that stakeholders, especially donors and beneficiaries, are often reluctant to label ‘fraud’ as a threat to the sector. This reflects ‘trusting indifference’, a value embedded in the sector that brings more harm than good to the sector in terms of wrongdoing, by hampering effective social control. Adapting existing theories of fraud to charities, we propose a ‘fraud tower’ with three layers: the social layer (trusting indifference), organisational layer (opportunity), and individual layer (fraudsters-opportunity seekers).
Abstract
Across rich nations with welfare states, charity continues as a dominant force in the lives of people who are poor. Inadequate state welfare and high housing costs drive people in poverty to ...seek daily support from charities. Based on in-depth interviews with 24 volunteers providing charity and 57 people receiving charity in Australia, as well as on observations of the provision and receipt of charity in practice, this article examines the experiences and meaning of charity from those who provide and receive it. The analysis shows that people receiving charity feel shame, and this shame derives from the judgements of volunteers and the position of recipients as passively receiving what is given. The findings also show that some volunteers actively engage with recipients to mitigate shame, and the dynamic interaction between provider and receiver of charity can reduce the shame people experience. Despite these successes in mitigating shame, the unidirectional provision of charity to people in poverty fails to take account of the value people place – and society expects – on reciprocity. Prioritizing the interests of those in poverty who receive charity, the article argues for the necessity of transforming charity to create conditions for reciprocity.
Previous research suggests that receiving a charity donation could induce gratitude but threaten self‐esteem. We investigated if peer charity donations from typical children benefit or harm the ...mental health of their left‐behind children (LBC) classmates. We recruited children at a school (i.e., intervened school) that organized peer charity donations every semester and three typical schools (i.e., non‐intervened school) without such intervention in China. Participants completed the gratitude, self‐esteem, depression, and social anxiety scales. A statistical toolbox, “Matchit”, randomly selected 420 children aged 9–13 (220 females, 200 males, 213 LBC, 207 non‐LBC); there was no significant difference in left‐behind status, age, gender, or family economic status (all p > .10) between the intervened and non‐intervened groups (210 per group). Structural equation model analyses revealed that gratitude was associated with higher self‐esteem, lower social anxiety, and lower depression. Moreover, the intervention effect on self‐esteem was significantly positive among the LBC recipients and non‐LBC donors. The interaction between intervention and left‐behind status was significant on gratitude and depression. Specifically, the intervention effect was not significant on gratitude or depression among the LBC but was significantly negative on gratitude and depression among the non‐LBC. Peer charity donation may increase self‐esteem among children (recipients or donors) via increased social connection or satisfaction of basic needs, yet decreased gratitude among the donors due to the “moral licensing effect”.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences in the external factors influencing intention to donate via social network sites (SNSs), and the online donation knowledge and ...awareness effect on the willingness to donate via SNS in the future between Malaysian and South Korean users.
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 288 samples’ data obtained from online survey using the snowball technique were analyzed through using cross-tabulation with
χ
2
tests and multiple regression analysis.
Findings
The results show that there is no significant difference between those countries regarding the online donation knowledge and awareness. However, the online donation knowledge and awareness significantly affect the willingness to donate via SNSs for South Korean, but not for Malaysian. As for Malaysian, the results reveal that only SNS features factor does significantly influence the attitude toward online donations. As for South Korean, the charity project and internet technology features factor significantly influence the attitude toward online donations. The attitude toward online donations of both countries influences on their intention to donate via SNS.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was gathered from certain regions in Malaysia and South Korea, and had slightly unbalanced characteristics (i.e. age), limiting the generalizability to the general population of both countries.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that non-profit organizations should consider the culture context in planning their future SNS donation program and focus on how to deal with the internet issues (e.g. trust, security), SNS features and charity project. As for Malaysian, promoting the internet and online donation awareness should be the priority before engaging in SNS donation program.
Originality/value
Whilst research on culture context in donation area is plentiful, the area of SNS donation remains underexplored. This paper offers an in-depth understanding of what influences SNS donation related to the identified culture context.
Crowdfunding has matured into a meaningful online marketplace, both for traditional e-commerce activities and for charitable fundraising. For charities, crowdfunding presents novel donation ...behaviors, including those where donors may proactively seek out causes and give (often anonymously) to help others with whom they share little social connectivity. Understanding these behaviors is challenging compared to traditional fundraising behaviors, where charitable giving is partly explained by factors such as guilt avoidance, reciprocity, image, vicarious enjoyment, and group-level benefits. This suggests that some subset of charitable motivations is brought uniquely into focus in crowdfunding marketplaces. These marketplaces are often inhabited by fundseeking individuals and larger formal organizations. This adds further complexity, given that donors traditionally perceive and interact differently with charitable organizations and less formal fundraising entities. This study explores donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding based on the distinction between "pure altruism" and "warm glow" motivations. We offer a discriminatory model of donation behaviors toward individuals and organizations, which is then tested in a large-scale field study of Razoo.com. Findings suggest that donations to organizations are more influenced by outcome-related factors, such as fundraising targets and the likelihood of meeting that target, while donations to individuals are more influenced by interaction-related factors, such as the level of dialogue around a campaign.
Charity Law and the Liberal State considers questions relating to state action and public discourse that are raised by the law of charity. Informed by liberal philosophical commitments and of ...interest to both charity lawyers and political philosophers, it addresses themes and topics such as: the justifiability of the state's non-neutral promotion of charitable purposes; the role of altruism in charity law; charity law, the tax system and the demands of distributive justice; the proper treatment of religious and political purposes in charity law; and the appropriate response of the liberal state to discrimination in the pursuit of charitable purposes.
It has long been acknowledged that Jews and Christians distinguished themselves through charity to the poor. Though ancient Greeks and Romans were also generous, they funded theaters and baths rather ...than poorhouses and orphanages. How might we explain this difference?
In this significant reappraisal of charity in the biblical tradition, Gary Anderson argues that the poor constituted the privileged place where Jews and Christians met God. Though concerns for social justice were not unknown to early Jews and Christians, the poor achieved the importance they did primarily because they were thought to be "living altars," a place to make a sacrifice, a loan to God that he, as the ultimate guarantor, could be trusted to repay in turn.
Contrary to the assertions of Reformation and modern critiques, belief in a heavenly treasury was not just about self-interest. Sifting through biblical and postbiblical texts, Anderson shows how charity affirms the goodness of the created order; the world was created through charity and therefore rewards it.
This study explores migrant identity construction in the curated stories of UK-based charity organisations. Drawing upon the paradigms of critical discourse analysis and narrative positioning, we ...demonstrate how the construction of migrant identities as successful, fulfilled, grateful and resilient reproduce a migration as transaction discourse. We problematise these representations as prerequisites to migrants’ acceptance, given that they not only speak to the neoliberal, neo-assimilatory paradigm of wider integration debates in UK public discourse, but also conflict with the overtly philanthropic aims of the charity organisations. The curated stories are, thus, transformed into sites of liquid racism in their entanglement of declared antiracist, covertly racist, positionings of migrants in the UK context. Our work contributes to the body of research that aims to scrutinise the largely unexamined work of institutionalised social actors who aim to ‘do the right thing’ by calling for greater reflexivity and the need for critical dialogue in order to unpack the embeddedness of antiracism in racism.
This paper focuses on Love in Africa, a female Chinese migrant charity network in Zimbabwe and examines its geopolitical influence. It makes two vital finding by drawing on the theories of critical ...geopolitics, feminist geopolitics and public diplomacy, as well as the criticism for the lack of attention to transnational geopolitics and insufficient conceptualization of the links between state and non-state actors in existing studies. First, this study shows that migrant organizations such as Love in Africa have dealt with many neglected details in China's state-led economic development process, which explains that migrant groups do not always challenge the state geopolitical discourse but can also form synergy with it in a form that is different from state practices. Second, this study illustrates how Love in Africa as a feminized subjectivity carves out an alternative space of love, care and transnational solidarity in contrast to the masculinity demonstrated by the state power of China. Even being excluded from state practices, these Chinese females have formed a joint force with the state in shaping geopolitical discourse. These findings reinforce the link between state and non-state actors that is under-explored in existing critical geopolitical studies and prompt an agenda of transnational geopolitics.
In the United States, most charitable donations go to religiously affiliated organizations, yet the impact of a charity’s affiliation on donor behavior is currently unclear. To better understand this ...impact, this article uses a laboratory experiment to explore how a charity’s religious affiliation drives donor behavior. In the experiment, participants select one charity from a list of eight, with each charity varying in religious affiliation. Masked and unmasked sessions differ in the inclusion of religious affiliation from half the charities, with masked sessions omitting religious affiliation of the charities. This article finds that adding religious language decreases donation frequency and average donation amounts for Christian charities competing against other religious charities. This drop is primarily driven by participants that are politically liberal. Participants prefer charity religious affiliation to match their own religious identity; however, participant strength of religiosity is more predictive in charity choice than religious affiliation.
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![‘[P]aying back to the commu...](http://api.summon.serialssolutions.com/2.0.0/image/issn/XR4PS5YY4K/0957-9265_1460-3624/small "‘[P]aying back to the community and to the British people’: Migration as transactional discourse in curated stories by UK charity organisations")
