A Regulatory-Focused Perspective on Philanthropy: Promotion Focus Motivates Giving to Prevention-Framed Causes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This research employs the framework of Regulatory Focus Theory to examine effectiveness of donation appeals using managerially controllable variables, with results demonstrating objective and implementable outcomes. The results indicate that while individuals’ promotion (vs. prevention) focus motivates philanthropic giving, it is prevention-framed (vs. promotion-framed) causes and appeals that garner greater support from donors. Moreover, we demonstrate that individuals’ promotion focus motivates giving to prevention-framed causes more than to promotion-framed causes. This counter-intuitive finding that persuasion of philanthropy does not function through a traditional regulatory-fit paradigm is an insight with both theoretical and managerial implications. This research leads to the recommendation that to enhance the effectiveness of donation appeals, non-profit managers need to consider message framing, specifically the use of a prevention-framed appeal and a target market of prospective donors with a chronically dominant or situationally activated promotion focus.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.017 | 0.024 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".