Why Canadians give to charity: an extended theory of planned behaviour model

The purpose of this paper is to test an expanded model of charitable giving and the intention to donate based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). The novelty of this research resides in disaggregating the overall attitude a donor may hold into three different attitude constructs: attitude toward a charity, attitude toward helping, and attitude toward donation. An online survey was conducted of 202 potential Canadian charitable donors. By using a hierarchical multiple regression, results show that overall, the extended TPB model proposed in this study is significantly better than those found in the extant research in predicting the intention to donate. The strongest influences on the intention to donate were past behaviour, moral norms, and perceived behavioural control. Subjective norms and attitude toward charitable organisation were found to be non-significant predictors. Managerial implications are also presented at the end of the paper.