Individual donations and social media communication: Italian cultural NPOs' strategies after the pandemic

Now, we will thoroughly analyse the current state in terms of individual donations to Italian cultural NPOs by comparing the pre-Covid situation with the one after the pandemic's outbreak.

Before Covid-19:
In December 2019, the Fondazione Italia Sociale (FIS) published the working paper "La filantropia in Italia nel confronto internazionale", which shed light on the difficulty of clearly defining the situation in Italy about donations to NPOs. Actually, all the issues raised by the authors branch out from a single source, i.e.: a problem pertaining to data. Indeed, FIS' specialists stressed that while Italian donors' characteristics are treated abundantly and with homogeneous results by surveys, economic data flow into a grey zone where approximation and uncertainty reign.

For instance, in 2018 Istat counted 7.650.000 donors in Italy, while GfK 9.644.400 and BVA Doxa 14.673.063. These non-homogenous outcomes are mainly related to the lack of updated information, a systematic analysis, and common criteria in methodology and sampling. Taking the Istat case as example, we must say that it produces two documents, i.e.: the Registro statistico del settore non-profit, which annually provides information on the main characteristics of Italian NPOs, and a multi-year and multi-purpose sample survey that analyses their economic and social aspects. Together they constitute the Censimento permanente delle Istituzioni non-profit that shows a non-stop boost in the quantity of Italian non-profit organizations since 2001. However, even though Italy remains one of the few countries that makes an NPOs' census, the latter presents two problems: insufficiency of economic data – because they are not provided every year – and no distinction between incomes from individuals and those from companies. In fact, the item Contributi, offerte, donazioni, lasciti testamentari e liberalità includes sponsorships as well as liberal donations, 5x1000 and others. Conversely, according to FIS' paper, the Italy Giving Report by Vita is the only available survey in Italy that specifically deals with donations from individuals to NPOs. Specifically, in terms of the total amount donated, Vita reported an increasing trend between 2013 and 2016 (Fig. 1).

Nevertheless, as emphasized by FIS, there is still a problem because this report provides a precise number of individual donations without specifying the calculation criterion adopted. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, there is a great difficulty in comprehending the quantity of Italian donors. Indeed, according to the FIS' paper, we have conflicting reports: both GfK (Fig. 2) and BVA Doxa reported a consistently negative trend until 2017, while Istat found a steady trend and the CAF's World Giving Index showed a fluctuating one (Fig. 3).
Unfortunately, we did not find the Istat and BVA Doxa's precise data used by FIS, either in their working paper or on the Internet. Therefore, a comparison of all graphs is not possible here. However, the FIS study allows us a better visual comparison for the year 2018 thanks to the following chart (Fig. 4)

Additionally, along with these issues, the FIS' working paper observes some other interesting aspects. For instance, in 2018 BVA Doxa registered medical research – followed by social assistance and emergency aids – as the most supported cause in Italy. For what concerns favourite channels, 63% of the survey's respondents claimed to prefer cash, 42% SMS, and 28% the postal bulletin (Fig. 5).

Moreover, the 2019 World Giving Index globally classified Italy at the 44th place for percentage of donors, and at the 3rd place for the total amount of individual donations. Trying to explain this apparent paradox, FIS' specialists supposed that the huge social gap in Italy contributes to a lower percentage of donors than elsewhere, and that probably those who donate belong mainly to the wealthiest section of the population. They support this claim by mentioning the 2018 Indagine sui bilanci delle famiglie italiane by Banca d'Italia, which reported that 30% of the richest Italians hold 75% of the national net wealth. Nonetheless, they specify that this is only a supposition that is not yet scientifically demonstrated. Thus, in general, for 2018 FIS estimated a total volume of donations to Italian NPOs that exceeded € 8.000.000 and stressed that individual donations were the main source of this amount. However, we must underline that this sum also included donations from foundations of banking origin and companies as well as non-defined quantities from bequests and informal donations (Calzaroni, Salvatori, & Scarpat, 2019).

Furthermore, for the year 2019 – not analysed by the FIS' paper – the report Noi doniamo published in 2020 by the Istituto Italiano della Donazione (IID) mentions that both Vita and BVA Doxa appraised a 2019 decline in donations compared to the three precedent years. It reports also that people between 65-74 years old were the ones who donated the most in 2019; while, geographically, donations were driven by North Regions, Emilia Romagna, and Tuscany as in previous years. In addition, it informs that – according to the 2020 edition of Donare 3.0 by BVA Doxa, PayPal and Fondazione Rete del Dono – while cash is still the preferred method, online donations are on the rise and postal bulletins have collapsed. Simultaneously, more people donated through the purchase of tickets for events and charity dinners. Meanwhile, medical research still reigned undisputed, and non-donors confirmed that the primary cause for which they do not donate to NPOs was lack of trust (IDD, 2020). [...]