Non-profit organizations in times of crisis : examining the effects of crisis type, crisis response, and spokesperson type

Many Dutch charitable organizations had the misfortune to be involved in a crisis somewhere during the last couple of years. Since these organizations mainly depend on the support of their donors, proper crisis management is crucial in order to recover from a crisis. Even though crisis communication has been a well investigated topic in literature, most studies were conducted in the profit sector. Therefore, present study focuses on the crisis communication of non-profit organizations. The key objective of this study was to examine the influence of crisis type, crisis response, and spokesperson type on the outcomes of a crisis in a non-profit context. A 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design was applied to determine the effects on people’s emotions (anger and sympathy), willingness to forgive, trust in the organization, trust in the charitable sector, intention to donate, and intention to donate to charitable organizations in general. The findings of present study showed that crisis type is a strong influencer of public’s emotions, attitudes, and behavioural intent towards the organization. Crisis response also affected some outcomes, while spokesperson type did not result in any significant outcomes. Several interactions were found between crisis type, crisis response, and spokesperson type, however these findings were not very robust.