Charitable Contribution in Healthcare: What Drives Iranians to Donate Money?

There is limited evidence about charitable contribution and donation in Iranian healthcare. The main objective of this study was to investigate the factors that influence and encourage Iranian donors to donate money for healthcare facilities.

Data was gathered through semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 36 donors, fund-raisers, and managers of the Iranian health system. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis, assisted by MAXQDA 10 software.

The factors that affect Iranian donors to donate money for healthcare facilities were (a) feelings of altruism, compassion, concern, pity, sympathy, and obligation; (b) perceptions of difficulties and need in others, similarity with beneficiary, feedback from previous donations, thinking about death, and self-realization; (c) benefits consisted of monetary, social, and psychological benefits; and (d) values including moral, social, and religious values.

Better understanding of feelings, perceptions, benefits, and values of donors could improve the fund-raising practices in the Iranian health system.