“Feel the Warmth” glow: A field experiment on manipulating the act of giving

Abstract

We conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personalized holiday card to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a treatment group, in which donors were presented with the option to write their own card for the recipient, or a control group, in which donors were not given the option to write their own card for the recipient. We predict that treatment should increase contributions through making the gift more meaningful, but may also decrease contributions by increasing the transaction and social costs of donating. We find evidence in favor of the negative effects of costs from treatment, and no evidence of increased giving. We also observe that our treatment crowds out small donors (donors giving $5 or less). October 22, 2013 AbstractWe conducted a field experiment with a charitable group to investigate whether giving the donor an option to write a personal message to the recipient influences giving behavior. Over 1,500 households were approached in a door-to-door campaign and randomized to either a control or a treatment in which donors could include a card for the recipient. We predict that treatment should increase contributions through making the gift more meaningful, but may also decrease contribution rate by increasing the social or other cost of donating. We find evidence in favor of the cost effect, and no evidence of increased giving.JEL Classifications: C93, H41, D64

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

“…Related literature also finds a role for cognitive costs in other domains. For example, Iyengar and Lepper (2000) find that individuals are more likely to undertake activities with a low number of choices, while Chuan and Samek (2014) find that individuals are less likely to give to a charity when provided the option of additionally writing a message in a holiday card. We also propose that suggested amounts affect transaction costs.…”

How Do Suggested Donations Affect Charitable Gifts? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Public Broadcasting

“…This idea is related to an existing literature on cognitive costs, in that providing suggested amounts may decrease the cost associated with writing in an amount. For instance, Iyengar and Lepper (2000) find that individuals are more likely to undertake activities with only a low number of choices, while Chuan and Samek (2014) find that individuals are less likely to give to a charity when provided the option of additionally writing a message in a holiday card. 14…”

Influence of Customer Generosity to Intention in Participating to Future Charity Directly or Mediated by Positive Emotion

“…Charitable giving involves a huge amount of money. In the U.S., the total money given to charity in 2011 alone was $298.42 billion over 2% of U.S. GDP, and this number is estimated to grow (Chuan & Samek, 2014). Charities often emphasize the broad scope of a need.…”