An Experimental Test of Fundraising Appeals Targeting Donor and Recipient Benefits

Authors

John A. List, University of Chicago
James J. Murphy, Chapman UniversityFollow
Michael K. Price, National Bureau of Economic Research
Alexander G. James, University of Alaska, Anchorage

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-12-2021

Abstract

We partnered with Alaska’s Pick.Click.Give. programme to implement a statewide natural field experiment with 540,000 Alaskans designed to examine two of the main motivations for charitable giving: concerns for the benefits to self (impure altruism or ‘warm glow’) or concerns for the benefits to others (pure altruism). Our empirical results highlight the relative importance of appeals to self: individuals who received such an appeal were 6.6% more likely to give and gave 23% more than counterparts in the control group. Yet, a message that instead appealed to recipient benefits (motivated by altruism) had no statistically significant effect on average donations relative to the control group. We also find evidence of long-run effects of warm-glow appeals in the subsequent year. Our results have import for theoreticians and empiricists interested in modelling charitable giving as well as practitioners and policymakers.

Comments

This article was originally published in Nature Human Behavior in 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01095-8

The Link to Full Text button above directs users to a free read-only version of the article.

Recommended Citation

List, J. A., Murphy, J. J., Price, M. K., and James. A. G. (2021). An experimental test of fundraising appeals targeting donor and recipient benefits. Nature Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-021-01095-8

Peer Reviewed

1

Copyright

Springer