Philanthropy has been viewed as an ethical behavior stemming from moral virtue or moral duty. When philanthropic actions are conducted in exchange for what could be construed as personal gain, then what would be a moral act becomes a transactional or even selfish one. Donating money in exchange for some other gift, service, or benefit is not the same as selflessly bequeathing the same. “Pure philanthropy...is a transfer rather than a transaction in the sense that nothing is received in return,” (Keating, Pitts & Appel, 1981, p. 816). However, it may be unrealistic to expect that all philanthropic behavior stem from a sense of moral duty. The concept of a “pure” philanthropy in which efforts are transferred would also preclude any donation that was not anonymous, because of the way public recognition can be leveraged for personal or organizational gain. In fact, the motivation for transfer and transactional philanthropy is different (Chapman, 2016). Whereas the transactional donor does respond to benefits like recognition or seats to a gala dinner, the transfer philanthropist has a transformational attitude: their gift is designed to bring about the desired social justice change (Chapman, 2016). It is possible to achieve transformational philanthropic goals while marketing social causes as transactions, but ultimately the marketing...

The appeals to a transactional donor will be for some service or goods in exchange for the donation, whereas the appeal to the transformational donor will be directly related to the cause itself.
The trend towards corporate social responsibility reflects some of the differences between transactional and transformational philanthropy. When corporate social responsibility is framed as an economic necessity for a firm to remain competitive, gain market share, promote a brand, or attract or retain customers, then whatever social justice or environmental causes are purported become secondary to the benefits to that organization’s success. Many philanthropic transfers are done to save money on taxes, or to cover up for gross injustices perpetrated by the organization. On the other hand, when an organization more genuinely sacrifices something in the form of transference of resources or a fundamental change in its operations, it demonstrates the principles of transformational philanthropy.

The transactional view of philanthropy has become popular, leading to a generation of so-called “new philanthropists” (“The New Philanthropists: More Sophisticated, More Demanding — and Younger,” 2013, p. 1). Represented by the likes of Eric Trump, new philanthropy cannot be dismissed,…