Testing donation menus: on charitable giving for cancer research – evidence from a natural field experiment

Abstract

Behavioral economics research has helped with understanding charitable behavior and has shown that charities can encourage donations by carefully designing their pledges. However, there is still scope to extend current research on who gives, what drives the decision to donate and at what levels, especially when behavioral insights are applied in context. In cooperation with a major Italian charity for cancer research, this study implements a natural direct mail field experiment, with over 150,000 letters sent to donors. By exploring the behavioral responses to different donation anchors, evidence was found that, within the given framework, including donation menus significantly increased the average amount donated without affecting the likelihood of donation. Furthermore, introducing additional explanations of how to make a payment significantly increased overall returns. Lastly, individual heterogeneity (high- and low-frequency donors, as well as senior and junior donors) had a direct effect on donations.

Setting a Price for Charitable Giving Increases Donations

“…Expanding on the logic of these interventions, rather than providing a single default or suggested donation amount, other interventions use "donation ranges" (notice that our partner organization in Study 4 similarly employed a donation range as standard practice). Alternatively labeled appeal scales (De Bruyn and Prokopec 2013) or donation menus (Baggio and Motterlini 2022), these methods of charitable solicitations can also increase donations. In addition to communicating normative information, such donation ranges can be strategically designed to promote giving a certain amount by including asymmetrically-dominated alternatives (Huber et al 1982).…”

The future of behavioral insights: on the importance of socially situated nudges

“…Controlled laboratory evaluations of Facebook's disputed warning label system (tagging articles that have been disputed by independent fact-checkers) have shown some promise in reducing the credibility of disputed articles (Pennycook et al , 2017). On the Behavioral Public Policy Blog, Baggio and Motterlini (2017) suggest other real-world social applications of inoculation, such as in the context of vaccine hesitancy, as after childbirth parents are typically overwhelmed and may be more susceptible to misinformation. Other potential societal applications include building cognitive resistance to extremism and radicalization in conflict areas.…”