Dirty air, empty coffers? Nonprofit donations and volunteering in the context of severe air pollution

Purpose – Poor environmental conditions pose profound societal challenges, yet their impact on the nonprofit sector, particularly in terms of financial and organizational sustainability, remains largely unexplored. To address this concern, we investigate how hazardous air quality influences donations and volunteering in nonprofit organizations. Design/methodology/approach – Combining county-level US EPA air quality data with 1.63 million IRS Form 990 filings by 248, 749 nonprofits between 2010 and 2022, we examine the impact of air pollution on organizations across time and space. Instrumental variables regression and entropy-balancing techniques are employed to address potential endogeneity concerns. Additional analyses examine the roles of industry sub-sector, service orientation, donor sophistication and government funding in conditioning the relationship between air pollution and our two outcome variables. Findings – Organizations in areas experiencing more hazardous air quality days are associated with lower levels of donations but higher levels of volunteering. Additional cross-sectional analyses suggest that environmental, health and human service nonprofits experience increased donations in the context of severe air pollution while arts and mutual benefit organizations see increased volunteering. Additional analyses on the conditioning effects of donor sophistication, service orientation, and government funding provide further insights into the empirical relationship between air pollution and nonprofit engagement. Originality/value – This study provides one of the first large-N examinations of the organizational impact of localized environmental factors on charitable activity. In providing evidence for how air quality appears to be a robust, but underexplored factor affecting donor and volunteer behavior, our study underscores the importance of understanding how environmental challenges influence civic engagement.