Charitable Giving and Nonbinding Contribution-Level Suggestions — Evidence from a Field Experiment

Abstract

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Matching Donations Without Crowding Out? Some Theoretical Considerations, a Field, and a Lab Experiment

“…We also find a significant effect of suggestions which is largely in line with the previous literature (see, Adena et al 2014). Table B3 in the appendix presents the results for the intensive and extensive margin separately.…”

Follow the crowd: Social information and crowdfunding donations in a large field experiment

“…We excluded papers that mentioned the donation amount of one previous donor, such as Klinowski (2015), Murphy et al (2015) and Croson et al (2013) because Sell and Wilson (1991) found that aggregated social information results in lower contributions than specific social information about one individual. Of the 35 studies reviewed by van Teunenbroek et al (2019), six studies (Adena et al, 2014: Hysenbelli et al, 2013Jones et al, 2004;Sell et al, 1991;Catt et al, 1977;Cialdini et al, 1976) fit our criteria. The amounts donated in the treatment conditions of these papers were on average 22% higher than in the control groups.…”

Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…Our paper is related to these studies in that some of the potential mechanisms behind default effects can also play a role for other fundraising interventions. Specifically, to the extent that potential donors interpret the default option as a recommended contribution to the charitable cause, our paper is related to studies that examine how giving is affected by directly requesting (Fraser, Hite, & Sauer, 1988;Edwards & List, 2014) or explicitly suggesting (Adena et al, 2014;Goswami & Urminsky, 2016) specific donation levels during solicitation. Similarly, the literature on "appeal scales" (i.e., providing donors with a vector of multiple suggested contribution levels; see Weyant & Smith, 1987;Desmet & Feinberg, 2003;Adena & Huck, 2016;Reiley & Samek, 2017) is related in that there is a partial overlap in the channels through which appeal scales and defaults may affect behavior (e.g., recommendations or anchoring).…”