Investigating the factors influencing the individuals’ intention of money donation (Sadaqah) to charities: the case of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Charities across the world are struggling to raise money for their good causes. This study investigates the factors that relate to money donation behaviour in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The number of working charities in Saudi Arabia is increasing due to the current government support to the charity sector, including the recent pandemic of COVID-19. This growth leads to charities’ managers struggling to attract donors to donate money in response to various fundraising campaigns. Consequently, it is essential for charity managers to understand the critical factors influencing individuals’ behaviour to donate money to charities. The systematic examination and analysis of the published literature indicate that there has been a little known about understanding an individual’s money donation behaviour. Also, there is a lack of empirical studies and theoretical modelling that considers a multi-disciplinary approach to formulate a conceptual framework to understand an individual’s money donation behaviour. Thus, this study aims to fill the gap and critically investigate and examine the potential factors influencing an individual’s intention to donate money (Sadaqah) to charities in Saudi Arabia by implementing a multi-disciplinary approach, which considers the psychological, sociological and organisational perspectives. This study focuses on Sadaqah type of money donations, which is giving voluntary to charities by Muslim. This study adopts a hybrid methodology approach. The principal methodology approach is quantitative and is complemented by a qualitative approach. A pilot study of 10 telephone semi-structured interviews was conducted to have a feel from individuals about the study and their understanding of the problem under consideration of money donation behaviour in Saudi Arabia. A theoretical framework was developed by extending the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to critically investigate and examine the potential factors influencing an individual’s intention to donate money (Sadaqah) to charities in Saudi Arabia. The final and developed framework was validated, using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) based on survey questionnaires where 472 valid cases (out of 988) participants who responded, as they only donate Sadaqah to charities. The empirical results show that an individual’s intention to donate can be significantly predicted by four factors: attitude towards donating money to charities, moral responsibility, perceived behavioural control, and trust disposition. As for the mediation effect, the empirical results show that attitude towards donating money to charities fully mediates (indirect-only mediation) three relationships (i.e. organisational trust and intention to donate, charity social media marketing and intention to donate, and attitude towards helping others and intention to donate). Additionally, attitude towards donating money to charities partially mediates (complementary mediation) two relationships (i.e. moral responsibility and intention to donate, and perceived behavioural control and intention to donate). The results also confirm significant differences in the intention to donate, which is attributed to the preferred time of donation, payment method and project type (i.e. Waqf or non-Waqf projects). Waqf is an Islamic endowment. This study’s originality provides a novel contribution and a fresh insight to the existing literature on charities, by incorporating personal, social, and organisational factors into the TPB model, to understand an individual’s intention to donate money (sadaqah) to charities. Consequently, the framework validated in this study contributes to knowledge of this subject area and can be applied across certain cultures and contexts. The results and findings of this study offer practical implications to both academics and practitioners involved in the field of donation behaviour, particularly to those involved in the area of money (Sadaqah) donation.