Abstract

The focus of this paper is to evaluate the impact that different degrees of involvement in the Wooster community have on the individual contribution decision of various Wooster alumni who are asked to make a contribution to the Wooster Fund. The contribution decision is a resource allocation dilemma in which an individual has to determine how much of his or her budget constraint to spend on competing goods in order to maximize his or her utility. In the case of Wooster alumni, the competing goods are goods that satisfy consumption preferences and goods that satisfy donation preferences. The assumption of this paper is that Wooster Alumni who belonged to organizations of various types while they attended Wooster can be predicted to donate to the Wooster Fund at a greater level than alumni who did not participate in organized collectives, because of the mission engagement-enhancing effect that group membership has on the contribution decision function. A data set of Wooster alumni contribution levels and descriptive statistics is analyzed econometrically in order to provide support for this hypothesis. Group membership is determined by the results of the analysis to be an important variable in the contribution decision, at least in this case study of Wooster Alumni contribution.

Advisor

Sell, John

Department

Economics

Disciplines

Econometrics | Economic Theory | Higher Education

Keywords

Charitable Donation, Alumni, Social Identity

Publication Date

2015

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis

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© Copyright 2015 John F. Manion