Does fundraising create new giving?

Abstract

at DonorsChoose.org for providing data and for numerous clarifying conversations. Derek N. Welborn provided excellent research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

Matching Schemes and Public Goods: A Review

“…Her survey includes a basic summary on matching and rebates with a particular focus on comparing these two. She concludes that based on the resulting level of the public good, matches are more effective than rebates, which is in line with experiments explicitly testing matching versus rebates (Eckel & Grossman 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2017Davis et al 2005;Lukas et al 2010;Bekkers 2015).…”

“…However, Adena & Huck (2017) use a lead donor treatment as baseline and still find a significant increase of about 2.4% in average checkbook giving per solicitation letter sent, when introducing a 1:1 match. Together with the evidence on matches being superior to equivalent rebates (Eckel & Grossman 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2017Davis et al 2005;Lukas et al 2010;Bekkers 2015), this suggests that in practice a matching response might not be solely driven by a decrease in the effective price.…”

“…Eckel & Grossman 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2017Davis et al 2005;Davis 2006;Lukas et al 2010;Bekkers 2015 or for an overview Vesterlund 2016). A common result of this literature is that matches outperform rebates on the basis of inclusive contributions received by the charity.…”

“…Another matching alternative is presented in Meer (2017), who investigates daily data from an online fundraising platform. Projects that satisfy certain observable criteria receive a match of 1 from partners of the website or an "Almost Home" match, in which all of the needed funds are provided by a partner organization as long as the last $100 are raised by private donors.…”

“…As a result, average checkbook giving is raised by 2.8%. The field experiment by Meer (2017) emphasizes that the public good does not need to be linear. It might have some threshold which needs to be reached as otherwise money is returned.…”