This research aimed to develop a deeper understanding of trust and non-profit agencywebsite design, and specifically focussed on the ‘Donate Now’ button. Two experimentsinvestigated the effects of varying levels of consumer certainty, manipulated by providingvarying levels of donation relevant information on the web homepage donation buttons, onaid agency trust and donation compliance. Both experiments were based on Study 1, apreliminary survey of website donation button design. Experiment 1 investigated the effectsof iconic manipulation of the ‘Donate Now’ button. Results suggested that varying levels ofconsumer certainty through iconic manipulation of the website donation button design did noteffect aid agency trust and donation compliance. Experiment 2 extended the research of Burtand Dunham (2009) to investigate the effects of varying consumer certainty levels throughthe provision of crisis/need and response photographs on the donation buttons. Resultssuggested that whilst there was no effect of level of certainty on donation compliance, therewas an effect on aid agency trust. Participants’ rated aid agency trust was increased to thegreatest extent in the level of greatest certainty, when the donation button containedphotographs of both the crisis/need and agency response. Collectively, these results suggestthat aid agency trust can be enhanced through the considered manipulation of donation buttondesign. Subsequently photographic images may be a more effective means with which toportray donation-relevant information and reduce uncertainty. Furthermore, in bothexperiments results showed that those individuals who reported higher aid agency trust alsoreported significantly higher donation intention. Thus, the current research has implicationsfor the non-profit sector, suggesting that whilst the internet is a viable fundraising tool, thecommercially driven process of online donation generation should not be isolated from thepsychological concept of trust.
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