Giving while grieving: understanding the motivations behind memorial philanthropy

Abstract

The death of someone we love can be one of the hardest and most traumatic events we can go through and is something that almost everyone will experience at some point in their life. Why, at that traumatic point in life, would someone be motivated to make a charitable gift? Why would they want to put in the time and effort to permanently place their loved ones’ name on a memorial related to a charity? Research on grieving has shown that when someone close to you passes away you often need to create a new relationship or bond with them. Symbols have been shown as a way to foster this new bond. This research explores what purpose memorial gifts, with a permanent memorialization, may be serving in the grieving process and whether: (1) people are using these gifts as a symbolic way to create a continued bond with the deceased; and whether (2) visiting these memorials is important to the donors, connected to their desire to create a bond with the deceased and how that fits into what we know about strategic memory protection. The goal of this research is to enrich the literature in charitable giving and consumer behavior as well as help non-profits work more sensitively and effectively with these donors while providing donors with what they are looking for through these types of charitable donations.