Donor Reaction to Non-Financial Information Covering Social Projects in Nonprofits: A Spanish Case

José Miguel Tirado-Beltrán, Iluminada Fuertes-Fuertes and J. David Cabedo
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José Miguel Tirado-Beltrán: Department of Finance and Accounting, Jaume I University, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain
Iluminada Fuertes-Fuertes: Department of Finance and Accounting, Jaume I University, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain
J. David Cabedo: Department of Finance and Accounting, Jaume I University, 12071 Castelló de la Plana, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-17

Abstract: The notion of accountability in nonprofits suggests that these organisations should disclose financial and non-financial practices following a holistic model. In practice, the interest of both managers and researchers has focused primarily on donors and financial disclosures, for funding and methodological reasons respectively. From the perspective of impact investment, all of them, government, beneficiaries, private donors, managers and volunteers are expected to make their decisions based on non-financial information as investors expecting social returns. However, to what extent does project information that demonstrates that the non-profit organisation has achieved its social mission actually matter? The main objective of this paper is to analyse whether the donations received by non-governmental organisations NGOs are related to the information disclosed on the projects undertaken. We perform our analysis separately for individual, private and public donors. Our results show that public donors are more interested in financial disclosures, private donors find information about outcomes and impacts to be most useful and individual donors do not tend to use non-financial information when it comes to making decisions about whether to donate or not.

Keywords: donors; nonprofits; social projects; non-financial information (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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