A field experiment on directed giving at a public university

Eckel, Catherine C.; Herberich, David; Meer, Jonathan

doi:10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.007

Cited by 49 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…We also propose that suggested amounts affect transaction costs. A related paper is Eckel, Herberich, and Meer (2014), who allow donors to direct their gift to a specific purpose, which one might expect will increase cognitive costs of making a gift. Similarly, Huck and Rasul (2010) propose that transaction costs prevent donors from giving in response to a mail campaign, and estimate that transaction costs may decrease the likelihood of a donation by 26% or more.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Round Giving: A Field Experiment on Suggested Donation Amounts in Public‐television Fundraising

Reiley

Samek

2018

Economic Inquiry

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Direct-mail fundraisers commonly provide a set of suggested donation amounts to potential donors, in addition to a write-in option. Standard economic models of charitable fundraising do not predict an impact of suggested amounts on charitable giving. However, our field experiments on direct-mail solicitations to over 10,000 members of a public television station tell a different story. We find that changing one of the suggested amounts in an ask string from $100 to $95 reduces the number of gifts greater than or equal to $90 by more than 30%. This contrasts with our finding that in three independent comparisons, increasing the entire vector of suggested amounts by 20%-40% reduces the probability of giving by approximately 15%, with little effect on the average size of the gift. Both manipulations lead to a larger proportion of write-in donations, even as they reduce the number of total gifts. We propose a simple behavioral theory to explain the data: many donors prefer to give round numbers, and donors incur a cognitive cost when choosing to give a nonsuggested amount. (JEL C9, H4)

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Round Giving: A Field Experiment on Suggested Donation Amounts in Public‐television Fundraising

Reiley

Samek

2018

Economic Inquiry

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“…In one such study on thank-you gifts, researchers offered a gift in exchange for donations of any size (21); consequently, any reduction in donation rates may have been counterbalanced by donors who chose to give low amounts to obtain the gift. In addition, that study targeted primarily donors who had never donated before, and donation rates were less than 1%.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demotivating incentives and motivation crowding out in charitable giving

Chao

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Research has shown that extrinsic incentives can crowd out intrinsic motivation in many contexts. Despite this, many nonprofits offer conditional thank-you gifts, such as mugs or tote bags, in exchange for donations. In collaboration with a nonprofit, this study implements a direct mail field experiment and demonstrates that thank-you gifts reduced donation rates in a fundraising campaign. Attention-based multiattribute choice models suggest that this is because prospective donors shift attention to the salient gift offer, causing them to underweight less salient intrinsic motives. Attention to the gift may also cause individuals to adopt a more cost-benefit mindset, further de-emphasizing intrinsic motives. Consistent with these hypotheses, crowding out was driven by those who donated higher amounts in the previous year (i.e., those who likely had higher intrinsic motivation). In a complementary online experiment, thank-you gifts also reduced donation rates but only when the gift was visually salient. This corroborates the mediating role of attention in crowding out. Taken together, the laboratory and field results demonstrate that this fundraising technique can be demotivating in some contexts and that this may occur through an attention-based mechanism.motivation crowding out | charitable giving | multiattribute choice | attention | saliency

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“…9 We selected advertising, because in terms of number of auctions being run daily, advertising auctions have no match-more than a hundred million advertising auctions take place per day (Försch et al 2017). We selected fundraising because it is a fast-growing sector of the economy (Giving USA, 2017), wherein innovative participative pricing methods are both sorely needed and readily adopted (Huck and Rasul 2011;Shang and Croson 2009;Eckel, Herberich, and Meer 2017), but also because charity and fundraising are the most naturally occurring applications of PWYW pricing, which is one of the main mechanisms discussed in this article.…”

Section: Applications Of Participative Pricing In Selected Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Posted Prices: the Past, Present, and Future of Participative Pricing Mechanisms

Spann

Zeithammer

Bertini³

et al. 2017

Cust. Need. and Solut.

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Driven by the low transaction costs and interactive nature of the internet, customer participation in the price-setting process has increased. These changes were first brought about by the rise of online auctions in the early 2000s, followed by the emergence of newer participative mechanisms.Today, platforms such as eBay have popularized online auctions on a global scale, Priceline has made headlines with its name-your-own-price (NYOP) business model, and Humble Bundle has enabled independent musicians and game developers to market their works through pay-what-youwant (PWYW) pricing. Advertising exchanges conduct several hundred million individual auctions per day to sell online advertising slots. These are just a few examples of participative pricing in transactions among consumers or businesses. In parallel, academic research on participative pricing has blossomed in recent years, with an overarching concern over the profitability and other marketing implications these mechanisms have on sellers and buyers.The present paper contributes to this literature in three ways. First, we propose a definition of participative pricing mechanisms, as well as a useful taxonomy. Second, we discuss the current understanding by synthesizing conceptual and empirical academic literature. Third, we outline promising research questions with a key focus on the related behavioral aspects of buyers and sellers.3

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A field experiment on directed giving at a public university

Cited by 49 publications

References 5 publications

Round Giving: A Field Experiment on Suggested Donation Amounts in Public‐television Fundraising

Round Giving: A Field Experiment on Suggested Donation Amounts in Public‐television Fundraising

Demotivating incentives and motivation crowding out in charitable giving

Beyond Posted Prices: the Past, Present, and Future of Participative Pricing Mechanisms

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