Communicating for donations : Do you give with the heart or with the brain?

Sammanfattning: The non-profit sector is growing, where NPOs compete for scarce resources. Meanwhile, innovation in communication technology requires resources and creativity. Can social media work as an efficient tool for communicating organizational goals and values and how does it enhance trust in NPOs relationship with donors? How do NPOs use ICT and social media in communication to donors and how do they implement functional and emotional communication online?  The research area is approached through a deductive, qualitative, and constructivist perspective. Interviews with two leading NPOs were held, as well as a number of interviews with potential donors. The theoretical framework builds upon Morgan and Hunts and MacMillan et al’s models of trust and commitment. Functional and emotional communication was developed through various theories on online communication. The main findings of this thesis are that Swedish NPOs mainly focus on emotional communication in order to obtain emotional commitment before further developing trust, which is created from functional communication. The investigated NPOs use functional communication to a very little extent.