The State of the Art and Future Research Directions in Face-to-Face Fundraising: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract Face-to-face (F2F) fundraising is employed by nonprofit organizations all around the world. We systematically review 50 years of literature on this technique, focusing on door-to-door and street fundraising, two types that allow for reaching a large, randomly assembled, and heterogeneous group of people, who typically have no personal relationship with recruiters. We provide both a quantitative and qualitative synthesis of 67 articles published in international peer-reviewed academic journals. Our review identifies several recurring research themes, integrates these into a F2F fundraising framework, and delineates articles based on this framework. We classify research themes into two categories: F2F fundraising outcomes (e.g., new donors, donation amount) and factors related to actors or contexts of campaigns affecting these outcomes (e.g., donors’ preferences, persuasion techniques). Articles in this review mainly focus on factors related to actors or context affecting outcomes, with this category being five times more often the primary focus compared to F2F fundraising outcomes. Finally, we create evidence-based guiding questions for fundraising professionals, uncover gaps in existing knowledge, and provide recommendations for future research agenda.