An assessment of bereaved supporters' expectations and experiences of giving via digital memorial sites

This project aims to explore the creation of digital content via charities as a memorialising practice. It will answer the following questions:
1. Why do bereaved people give to charities in remembrance of a deceased person by creating an online memorial?
2. How were their expectations of this ritual fulfilled or disappointed in their actual experience?
3. What is the role and experience of charities in providing this service, and how might practise need to change to meet the needs of bereaved supporters?
In-memoriam giving in the UK is valued at approximately £2.2 billion, and it is growing steadily at 2.5% per annum. Digital forms of such giving - such as creating digital memorials by making one-off cash donations or peer-to-peer fundraising - accelerated during the pandemic.
This bereavement ritual seems set to stay, but currently very little is known about in-memoriam giving online, in terms of the experience for bereaved people, the benefit derived from such sites, and the management of the sites by charities.
Various hypotheses as to how in-memoriam giving might aid bereaved people have been proposed. These include: by locating the deceased person in the (ongoing) world, by continuing relationships and communication with the deceased and by creating a sense of 'symbolic immortality' for the deceased person. To date, there has been no systematic review of these hypotheses and little, if any, of the existing research has spoken to bereaved people to understand their experiences.
In seeking empirical evidence to critique these hypotheses, this PhD study will make a novel contribution to the field of death studies, charity practice, and digital transformation as it captures the voices, values and views of bereaved online donors for the first time.
In terms of impact and real-world utility, this project will provide charities with practical guidelines and standards about the development and management of digital sites for bereaved people. Utility will be maximised...