Giving behaviors in Indonesia: motives and marketing implications for Islamic charities

The purpose of this paper is to examine the motives and giving behaviours of donors towards Islamic charities in Indonesia by using various demographic, socio-economic, psychographic and motivational/situational characteristics. Based on these analyses, relevant marketing implications are also discussed. The study hopes to enrich Islamic marketing literature and contribute further to the understanding of marketing within the context of the Islamic voluntary sector.

This empirical paper primarily employs a quantitative approach in analysing the giving behaviours. The primary data is gathered through a survey conducted in January 2011 involving 300 Indonesian Muslim donors. The results are analysed with descriptive and correlation statistics.

First, the analysis highlights that the main causes for charitable giving are to help the poor/needy and support religious causes. Second, most of the donors provide funds through “informal” Islamic charities. Third, most of the individual donors are young, educated and possess strong humanitarian concerns. Interestingly, although there is a positive correlation between income and donation, individuals who donate more are not the rich but the middle-income earners. Finally, there is evidence to indicate that donors may increase donations even during economic crisis.

Understanding donor's characteristics and behaviours are essential in designing and implementing an effective marketing framework, which is expected to retain and manage long-term supportive relationships with the donors. Relationship marketing framework and branding strategy are also worth considered for this purpose.

Few studies analyse Islamic charities in the modern marketing perspective, especially in Indonesia. This study, therefore, fills the gap in the research area.