Nonprofit organizations often rely on individuals to execute their mission of addressing unmet societal needs. Indeed, one of the most significant challenges facing such organizations is that of enlisting individuals to provide support through the volunteering of time or donation of money. To address this challenge, prior studies have examined how promotional messages can be leveraged to motivate individuals to support the missions of nonprofit organizations. Yet promotional messages are only one aspect of the marketing mix that may be employed. The present study examines how donor-based nonprofit organizations can employ the marketing mix—product, price, promotion, place, process, and people—to influence the experiences of sacrifice associated with donation. The authors do so through an ethnographic study of individuals participating in living organ donation. First, they identify the manifestation of sacrifice in donation. Next, they define three complementary and interactive types of sacrifice: psychic, pecuniary, and physical. Then, they articulate how the marketing mix can be employed to mitigate experiences of sacrifice that emerge through the donation process. The authors conclude by discussing implications for marketing practice and identifying additional research opportunities for sacrifice in the realm of donation.

Abstract: Inspired by the goal of making marketplaces more inclusive, this research provides a deeper understanding of consumer vulnerability dynamics to develop strategies that help reduce these vulnerabilities. The proposed framework, first, conceptualizes vulnerability states as a function of the breadth and depth of consumers’ vulnerability; then, it sketches a set of vulnerability indicators that illustrate vulnerability breadth and depth. Second, because the breadth and depth of vulnerability vary over time, the framework goes beyond vulnerability states to identify distinct vulnerability-increasing and vulnerability-decreasing pathways, which describe how consumers move between vulnerability states. In a final step, the framework proposes that organizations can (and should) support consumers to mitigate vulnerability by helping consumers build resilience (e.g., via distinct types of resilience-fueling consumer agency). This framework offers novel conceptual insights into consumer vulnerability dynamics as well as resilience and provides avenues for future research on how organizations can better partner with consumers who experience vulnerabilities.