No matter near or far: why soliciting donors via smartphones reduces inequities in funding across local and distant nonprofit organizations

Extant literature shows donors typically contribute more to local nonprofits than geographically distant nonprofits, resulting in funding inequities for charities located far from traditional donor sources. The present research reveals soliciting donors via smartphones can help address this critical issue. Four studies examine real monetary donations and click-through rates, including a field study in partnership with a nonprofit organization. We find that while donors on desktops exhibit local bias by contributing more to local than to distant charities, donors on smartphones do not. This is because while donors on desktops feel spatially confined to their local area, donors on smartphones and other highly portable devices feel free to travel, which increases their social connection to beneficiaries outside their local area. Considering increased mobile giving, implications are timely for serving underfunded regions. More broadly, the findings offer marketers strategies to optimize consumer response rates across locations through mobile targeting and geotargeting.