The Role of Web Assurance Seals in Nonprofit Giving

Abstract

ABSTRACT Using a sample of the 2,000 largest nonprofit organizations in the U.S., we document that the use of web assurance seals is not as commonplace as for-profit e-commerce websites. In particular, we find that only about 14 percent of sample organizations invest in web assurance seals. Those that do provide web seals are larger, less efficient, and spend more on fundraising and information technology. Interestingly, however, our size result weakens for the very largest organizations in our sample. In addition to our contribution to the web assurance literature, we also contribute to donations research in identifying another feature important to donors in the decision to give. Specifically, we find a positive relationship between web seals and donations, indicating that providing this type of assurance attracts more donor support. We believe this is particularly interesting given the relatively few organizations adopting this type of signal in the marketplace for charitable contributions. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.