This research aimed to develop a deeper understanding of trust and non-profit agency
website design, and specifically focussed on the ‘Donate Now’ button. Two experiments
investigated the effects of varying levels of consumer certainty, manipulated by providing
varying levels of donation relevant information on the web homepage donation buttons, on
aid agency trust and donation compliance. Both experiments were based on Study 1, a
preliminary survey of website donation button design. Experiment 1 investigated the effects
of iconic manipulation of the ‘Donate Now’ button. Results suggested that varying levels of
consumer certainty through iconic manipulation of the website donation button design did not
effect aid agency trust and donation compliance. Experiment 2 extended the research of Burt
and Dunham (2009) to investigate the effects of varying consumer certainty levels through
the provision of crisis/need and response photographs on the donation buttons. Results
suggested that whilst there was no effect of level of certainty on donation compliance, there
was an effect on aid agency trust. Participants’ rated aid agency trust was increased to the
greatest extent in the level of greatest certainty, when the donation button contained
photographs of both the crisis/need and agency response. Collectively, these results suggest
that aid agency trust can be enhanced through the considered manipulation of donation button
design. Subsequently photographic images may be a more effective means with which to
portray donation-relevant information and reduce uncertainty. Furthermore, in both
experiments results showed that those individuals who reported higher aid agency trust also
reported significantly higher donation intention. Thus, the current research has implications
for the non-profit sector, suggesting that whilst the internet is a viable fundraising tool, the
commercially driven process of online donation generation should not be isolated from the
psychological concept of trust.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:canterbury.ac.nz/oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/3672 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Gibbons, Sophie Elizabeth |
| Publisher | University of Canterbury. Psychology |
| Source Sets | University of Canterbury |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic thesis or dissertation, Text |
| Rights | Copyright Sophie Elizabeth Gibbons, http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/thesis/etheses_copyright.shtml |
| Relation | NZCU |
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