Do charities get more when they ask more often? Evidence from a unique field experiment

Abstract

AND KEYWORDS AbstractCharitable organizations send out large volumes of direct mailings, soliciting for money in support of many good causes. Without any request, donations are rarely made, and it is well known that each request for money by a charity likely generates at least some revenues.Whether a single request from a charity increases the total amount donated by an individual is however unknown. Indeed, a response to one request can hurt responses to others. The net effect is therefore not easily observable, certainly not when multiple charities address the same individuals.In this paper we alleviate these observational difficulties by carrying out a field experiment in which five large charities cooperate. With the unique data that we collect, we study the impact of sending more requests on total donations.The results indicate that there is a negative competitive effect on requests from other charities, but this effect dies out rapidly. Soon after the mailing has been sent, it is only a strong cannibalization of the charity's own revenues that prevails. This empirical finding suggests the important conclusion that not much coordination across charities is needed to increaserevenues. We also demonstrate that charities need sophisticated evaluation tools that do not ignore the effects of cannibalization. Do charities get more when they ask more often?Evidence from a unique field experiment Bas Donkers Merel van Diepen Philip Hans Franses Erasmus University RotterdamFebruary 2010 AbstractCharitable organizations send out large volumes of direct mailings, soliciting for money in support of many good causes. Without any request, donations are rarely made, and it is well known that each request for money by a charity likely generates at least some revenues. Whether a single request from a charity increases the total amount donated by an individual is however unknown. Indeed, a response to one request can hurt responses to others. The net effect is therefore not easily observable, certainly not when multiple charities address the same individuals. In this paper we alleviate these observational difficulties by carrying out a field experiment in which five large charities cooperate. With the unique data that we collect, we study the impact of sending more requests on total donations.The results indicate that there is a negative competitive effect on requests from other charities, but this effect dies out rapidly. Soon after the mailing has been sent, it is only a strong cannibalization of the charity's own revenues that prevails. This empirical finding suggests the important conclusion that not much coordination across charities is needed to increase revenues. We also demonstrate that charities need sophisticated evaluation tools that do not ignore the effects of cannibalization.

Dynamics of American Giving: Descriptive Evidence

“…9. Other experiments that focus on time-based questions: Frey andMeier (2004), Falk (2007), Landry et al (2010), Castillo et al (2017), Donkers et al (2017), Fosgaard and Soetevent (2018), Adena and Huck (2017), , Andreoni and Serra-Garcia (2019), and Samek and Longfield (2019). Analyses of naturally occurring data that have focused on time: Meer (2017) and Scharf et al (2020).…”

Anticipating public expectations of humanitarian action—An ethnographic study of recruiting donors through face‐to‐face fundraising

“…These studies have provided insights on the influence of presenting different emotions (Ibanez et al, ), types of knowledge (Bachke, Alfnes, & Wik, ), and alternatives to make donations for fundraising audiences (Batista, Silverman, & Yang, ). Furthermore, the optimal fundraising strategies have been investigated in the context of email campaigns in which NGOs contact potential donors directly (Donkers et al, ). The literature also shows that successful fundraising is a combination of many factors (see also Bekkers & Wiepking, ; Zagefka & James, ).…”

“…This directness marks a difference with fundraising techniques that operate through less interactive means, such as advertisement campaigns (e.g., Vestergaard, 2008;Wilson, 2011). Lab-like environments for investigating the strategies of approaching donors do not share the liveliness of contacting passersby in the hustle and bustle of cities either (Donkers, van Diepen, & Franses, 2017;Ibanez, Moureau, & RousseI, 2017). Face-to-face campaigners are also more mobile than charity shops (Edwards & Gibson, 2017).…”

The Routledge Handbook of Taxation and Philanthropy

“…This approach reveals how earlier fundraising efforts of one charity affect giving to the same charity or other charities at a later point in time. Donkers et al (2017) find that additional mail solicitations by one charity reduce giving to other charities in the short term but not in the long term. There is also field evidence when charities compete for donations within a shorter time window.…”