Contact: Dr. Jeremy Thornton, Assistant Professor of Economics, 205-726-2128, jpthornt@samford.edu

Samford economist studies fundraising tactics

Ever feel buried by mail solicitations from your favorite charity? Tired of constant phone calls from solicitors? Nonprofits are no fans either.

"Fundraising is an arms race. Like it or not, nonprofits feel that they have no choice," describes Dr. Jeremy Thornton, a Samford School of Business economist who studies the nonprofit sector.

While constant solicitations are an annoyance, they have a more sinister consequence. Fundraising costs money, and that money could be spent producing charitable services. Thornton's study, published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, examines the tradeoff between nonprofits' need to attract donors and the desire of donors to minimize expenditures on fundraising. After studying the fundraising behavior of thousands of nonprofit organizations, Thornton finds that nonprofits may be fundraising too much. "The arms race of solicitations may cost more than donors think that they are worth," adds Thornton.

Thornton suggests a variety of policy solutions, including increasing the costs of entry for new nonprofits and promoting collective fundraising organizations such as the United Way.