Research On The Influences Of Micro-charityCharacteristics On Individual Charity Participation Behavior

With the rapid development ofphilanthropy, charity is increasingly important in China. Micro-charity, a new charity participation mode, has been attracting extensive attention and broad participation from the public.Recentliterature and actual data reveal that the characteristics of micro-charity are helpfulin attractingthe individual charity participation.But most of researches focused on describing the phenomenon of micro-charitythrough conceptual analysis. The mechanism of how micro-charity promotes individual charity participationis still unstudied.Therefore, this study focused on enhancingthe individual charity participation behavior and exploredthe influences of micro-charity characteristics on individual charity participation behavior from the perspective of non-profit marketing.Focus group interview, open-ended/structured questionnaire and large-scale survey were conducted in this study. And the following three key questions were addressed:1)What are the characteristicsof micro charity?2)What is the relationship between the characteristics of micro charity and the individual charity participation behavior?3) How do the micro-charity characteristics affect individual charity participation behavior?Firstly, throughliterature review, qualitative exploration and quantitative examination, this study identifys the three dimensions of micro-charity characteristics, including micro-charity cause attributes, social media strategy and accessibility to participation. Moreover, micro-charity cause attributes include cause concreteness and cause vitality, and social media strategy consists of disclosure, dissemination and interaction strategies.Secondly, the relationship between micro-charity characteristics and individual charity participation behaviorwas analyzed. The result shows that the three dimensions of micro-charity characteristicsare all positively related with individual charity participation behavior, but the relationship withviewing behavior and contribution behavior is significantly different. To be specific, cause vitality and interaction strategy is positively related with both viewing and contribution behavior, dissemination strategy and accessibility to participation only related to viewing behavior, while cause concreteness only has an significant effect on contribution behavior.Finally, based on the framework ofmicro-charity characteristics-perception-behavior,this study revealed the influence mechanism of micro-charity characteristics on individual charity participation behavior. Cognitive and affective trust is the bridge linking micro-charity characteristics and individual charity participation behavior. Micro-charity cause attributes and social media strategy affect contribution behavior through affective trust, while social media strategy and accessibility to participation affect viewing behavior through cognitive trust. Besides, the mediating effects of altruistic motivation and philanthropy climate are verified. Micro-charity characteristics have greater effect on contribution behavior and less effect on viewing behavior under high altruistic motivation than that at low. And under different philanthropy climate, there is great difference in the influence mechanism.This study deeply revealedthe reasonsfor the attractiveness of micro charity on wide individual participation. Our findings make the contribution to the literature of non-profit marketing, participation behavior and trust theory. Also, the suggestions to promote individual charity participation behavior are provided for micro-charity practitioners.