Americans and Tsunami Response: New Survey Results

This past semester a group of students at Boston University's College of Communication completed original survey research regarding Americans' response to the tsunami disaster. They investigated who gave, how much they gave, how much trust they have in where they gave, and a variety of other issues relevant to the charitable giving community.

PRWeb has more on the study, led by Professor James McQuivey, former VP at Forrester Research. A few excerpts ...

- Donor demographics. Surprisingly, a younger, less affluent group of donors rose to fund tsunami aid than normally participate in charitable giving. For example, the youngest donors gave an average of $324 each, nearly five times that of the oldest donors.

- The role of television vs. the Internet. While television remains the dominant source of tsunami information, the Internet is considered the easiest to use and facilitated donations by 20% of those who gave.

- Trust in charitable organizations. Despite much hand wringing in the media about whether money donated will really reach those in need, 83% of donors believe a majority of what they gave will be delivered as promised. Furthermore, they believe that seventy-five cents of each dollar donated makes its way to those affected by the disaster.