Does Media Influence Charitable Efforts

Have you ever consider how much the media influences charitable efforts? Recently a 2006 study from The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, uncovered that the specific media coverage of the devastating 2004 tsunami heavily influenced charitable donations. To most people this would make sense of course, if you know about the tragedy, then you know that the organization is in dire need of the monetary assistance for specific relief efforts.

However, the numbers were quite astounding. For just one 700-word story in The Wall Street Journal or New York Times or donations increased 18.2%, while a single minute of media coverage boosted donations up 13.2%!

As the editor of Get Rich Slowly writes, people were given convenient ways to donate with links on both the Google and Amazon home pages that directly sent web surfers to the donations page, helping Amazon raise more than $2.5 million dollars to help those in need. She also notes that in 2012 the American Red Cross raised over $300 million dollars for relief efforts after Hurricane Sandy took the East Coast by surprise.

In an effort to spread the word about the Red Cross, they failed to actually accomplish their mission.

In light of both of these events and the research done at the University of Michigan, Get Rich Slowly posed the question to their readers: How Does Media Coverage Affect Your Charitable Donations?

The answers may surprise