An Experimental Study of Voluntary Nonprofit Accountability and Effects on Public Trust, Reputation, Perceived Quality, and Donation Behavior

Abstract

Voluntary accountability carried out by nonprofit organizations seeks to ensure organizational adherence to financial and ethical standards beyond legal regulations, thereby sending signals of quality and trustworthiness. Yet, insights into whether and how different forms of voluntary nonprofit accountability influence the public’s attitude are limited, and recent calls emphasize the need for further empirical investigation. Building on the combination of three different research streams, this article presents a conceptual framework that distinguishes between four forms of (voluntary) nonprofit accountability within the theoretical context of the principal-agent theory. In an online experiment with 407 participants, the author demonstrates that externally certified voluntary accountability demonstrates higher reputation and perceived quality among nonprofit organizations, but not relating to donation behavior (relative to the other accountability conditions). Internal voluntary accountability has no effect, whereas no accountability is associated with less public trust, reputation, perceived quality, and donation behavior (compared with legal minimum accountability).