Nonprofit firms’ reliance on donations to build inventory distinguishes them from
traditional retailers. This reliance on consumer donations means that these organizations
face an inherently more volatile supply chain than retailers that source inventory from
manufacturers. The authors propose that consumer reluctance to part with possessions with
sentimental value causes a bottleneck in the donation process. The goal of this research
is therefore to provide nonprofits with tools to increase donations of used goods and
provide a theoretical link between the literature streams on prosocial behavior,
disposition, memory, and identity. As such, the authors explore the effectiveness of
memory preservation strategies (e.g., taking a photo of a good before donating it) in
increasing donations to nonprofits. A field study using a donation drive demonstrates that
encouraging consumers to take photos of sentimental possessions before donating them
increases donations, and five laboratory experiments explicate this result by mapping the
proposed psychological process behind the success of memory preservation techniques.
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