Donation Size Research Articles

The Effect of Information Overload on Charity Donations

This study examines the effect of information overload, due to information about people in increasing extent and number of needs, on altruism, such as charity giving. Information overload has previously been conceived in terms of quality as well as quantity of information. The former is conceptualised as extent of need and the latter as number of needs in the present research design. Two studies were conducted to test the prediction that information overload and charity donation size are inversely related. Study 1 was designed according to a 2 x 2 factorial design: Number of needs (high vs. low) x Extent of needs (long term and large scope vs. short term and small scope). Study 2 used a modified similar approach manipulating only number of needs. A sample of 60 and 44 undergraduate students filled out a charity donation form in the two studies. The results show a significant relationship between the factors of extent of need and number of needs with amount of money pledged for charity. People gave less the greater the extent of the need and the greater the number of needs. Both studies suggest information increase about extent and number of needs has inhibiting effects on charity giving. This effect, attributed to information overload, is labelled moral exhaustion.

How much to give? — The effect of donation size on tactical and strategic success in cause-related marketing

In cause-related marketing (CM), companies promise a donation to a cause every time a consumer makes a purchase. We analyze the impact of the size of this donation on brand choice (tactical success) and brand image (strategic success). Our results reveal different effects of donation size on these success measures. For brand choice, the effect of donation size is moderated by a financial trade-off for consumers, whereas the effect on brand image is moderated by donation framing. Specifically, we show that donation size has a positive effect on brand choice if consumers face no financial trade-off; i.e., if they do not have to choose between triggering a donation or saving money. The effect is negative if a trade-off exists such that higher donations come at higher costs. Brand image is enhanced by larger donations if the framing is nonmonetary (e.g., the campaign promises the provision of vaccinations), whereas donation size has a negative effect if donation framing is monetary (e.g., the campaign states the Euro amount). If campaigns use a combination of both frames, the effect of donation size on brand image has an inverted U shape. Our results suggest that CM enhances tactical and strategic success only if firms select the right donation size, taking into account donation framing and financial trade-offs.

Driving toward a goal and the goal‐gradient hypothesis: the impact of goal proximity on compliance rate, donation size, and fatigue

AbstractDriving toward a goal (DTAG) is a compliance technique derived from observed persuasion practice (e.g., telethons) wherein the persuader utilizes a goal pitch (e.g., “Help us raise $500”) and progress toward a goal (e.g., a tote board) to encourage compliance. It was postulated that DTAG would be more effective than legitimizing a paltry contribution (LPC) at increasing compliance rate, size, and stability. In Study 1, a fundraising field experiment (N = 840 donations) found that LPC garnered significantly more donations and DTAG garnered significantly larger donations. In Study 2, a lab experiment (N = 992 participants) found that LPC garnered more donations at Time 1, DTAG garnered more donations over time (eventually matching LPC), and LPC yielded smaller donations over time.

Choosing Your Object of Benevolence: A Field Experiment on Donation Options*

AbstractIn a large natural field experiment, we explore the effect of providing donors with the opportunity of choosing the target country for their donations. We find that our treatment manipulation affects neither the average donation size nor the response rate. Only a small fraction of donors (3.5 percent) actually choose their object of benevolence. These donors give more than those who do not specify a recipient. However, based on previous donations, we can only provide indicative evidence that this might be a causal effect rather than a mere selection effect.

The Continuity and Stability of Corporate Philanthropy Donation: Evidence from Chinese Firms’ Response to Disaster Relief

This paper investigates the determinants of continuity and stability of corporate philanthropy donation. By taking Chinese listed companies’ donations and two earthquakes as the sample, we find that media attention, product type, firm size, and past donation size have active effects in surveying the companies to perform the continuous social responsibility. Sustained and steady charitable giving depends on external pressure and internal motivation. The findings indicate that profitability, cash resource availability, and leverage will not affect the likelihood of a firms charitable giving in response to nature disaster for those who have a history of giving to disaster relief.

Newspaper Reporting and Public Perceptions of Party Finance in Britain: Knows Little, Learns Something?

A sizeable literature in political science considers the level of information citizens need to make informed policy choices, however, fewer studies examine the quality of information that is available to the public. While debate here has often characterized citizens as “informed” or “uninformed,” this article considers that the public may be mis-informed. Following Ansolabehere et al. (2005), I examine one source of mis-information – sampling bias – in newspaper reporting of party finance, and the extent to which individuals' estimates of donations and expenditures follow what is reported in the press. The data for the project come from three sources: a content analysis of major newspapers, survey data generated by YouGov's online panel (N = 2,008), and donation/expenditure reports from the regulator, the Electoral Commission. Analysis of the data here show evidence of sampling bias with respect to press reports on the size and source of donations and the relative spending priorities of the three main parties. Moreover, although public knowledge of key aspects of party finance is low, press reports provide little opportunity for the public to learn about party finance.

The size and distribution of donations: Effects of number of recipients

AbstractWhereas much literature exists on “choice overload”, less is known about effects of numbers of alternatives in donation decisions. We hypothesize that donations increase with the number of recipients, albeit at a decreasing rate, and reflect donors’ knowledge of the recipients. Donations involve different concepts of fairness—equity and equality—and these can interact with numbers of alternatives. In two experiments, respondents indicated how they would donate lottery winnings of 50 Euros. Results showed, first, that more was donated to non-governmental organizations and campaigns that respondents knew better. Second, total donations increased with the number of recipients albeit at a decreasing rate. Third, when limited to giving to only one of multiple alternatives, donors gave less than when this restriction did not apply. Fourth, variability of donations can both increase and decrease with the number of potential recipients. We comment on theoretical and practical implications as well as suggesting issues for future research.

Consumer perceptions of cause related marketing campaigns

PurposeBy replicating two seminal studies on cause‐related marketing (CRM) campaigns, this paper aims to investigate the influence of gender and of donation size on consumer perception of firm behavior, consumer attitude to product, consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign, consumer perception of the benefit to the NPO, and consumer attitude toward CRM.Design/methodology/approachAn online experiment was conducted with 306 students from a German university to evaluate their responses to a CRM campaign. The presented campaign supported a German children's charity, and varied with regard to donation size.FindingsConsumer perception of firm behavior, consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign, and consumer attitude to product vary significantly by gender. Donation size has a significant influence on consumer goodwill toward the CRM campaign and on consumer perception of the benefit to the NPO. The impact of donation size is rooted in external perceptions, and partly moderated by gender.Research limitations/implicationsThe chosen non‐forced stimulus presentation may overestimate the measured impact. The applied stimuli may underlie specific gender characteristics that influence responses. Further research might thus apply forced stimulus exposure designs to a broader set of causes and products.Practical implicationsResults imply that CRM campaigns promise to be particularly suitable for promoting products to women. When addressing men, small donations appear to be sufficient.Originality/valueThe authors expand existing research in three ways. Campaign impact is differentiated by consumer attitudes toward the company, toward the product, and toward the NPO. The article shows that the impact of donation size is gender‐specific. By investigating CRM response in Germany, the study regionally expands existing research.

Choosing Your Object of Benevolence – A Field Experiment on Donation Options

In a large natural field experiment, we explore the effect of providing donors with the opportunity of choosing the target country for their donations. We find that our treatment manipulation affects neither the average donation size nor the response rate. Only a small fraction of donors (3.5 percent) actually choose their object of benevolence. These donors give more than those who do not specify a recipient. However, based on previous donations, we can only provide indicative evidence that this might be a causal effect rather than a mere selection effect.

Overcoming Consumer Skepticism in Cause-Related Marketing: The Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility and Donation Size Claim Objectivity

Even though cause-related marketing has become an increasingly popular marketing tool, consumers have become skeptical about this strategy. Consumer skepticism is likely to lower the acceptance of advertising claims. The current study investigates how marketers might minimize consumer skepticism by varying the level of perceived corporate social responsibility and the level of claim objectivity regarding donation size. The results indicated that consumers were more likely to disbelieve the ad claim when the advertiser was perceived to be socially irresponsible than responsible. In addition, consumers were more likely to disbelieve the ad claim when the donation size was stated subjectively than objectively.

The Currency of Democratic Participation

Campaign finance reformers claim that the flow of contributions and expenditures undermines both political equality and the quality of public discourse. Their opponents criticize the regulation of political money, arguing that spending and giving money are legitimate forms of political speech, deserving constitutional protection. This debate is now deadlocked. With reform skeptics, this Essay brackets any collectivist concern about the effect of money on politics and refuses to distinguish the salient moments of the election period from day-to-day political participation. And yet, although my conclusions vastly differ from the typical recipes of reformers, they also depart quite significantly from the usual reaffirmation of the status quo advocated by reform skeptics. This Essay studies the individual right to democratic participation, understood as the right to participate in a political discourse composed of a delicate blend of preferences and reasons. It argues that spending money on political causes can be a valid form of communicating citizens' preferences and their relative intensity, and thus a legitimate component of this language of democratic participation. Unfortunately, this potential is currently unrealized and, furthermore, money currently threatens the integrity of our democratic discourse for two reasons: it reflects preferences in a distorted way due to wealth effects, and its use for politics may not leave enough space for reason-giving. If the expense of money is to enjoy the constitutional protections of political speech, political money needs to be purified from these two disturbing characteristics. This conversion requires the law of democratic participation to develop a new device: a clearinghouse of money for political causes. This clearinghouse should readjust the size of political donations and expenditures to reflect the intensity of the givers' and spenders' preferences. It should also ensure that political money is accompanied by reasoned communication, or that its use is otherwise structured to prevent undue dominance of preferences over reasons. Approximating success in accomplishing these two tasks is a condition for the rehabilitation of money expenditures in politics and its legitimate integration into our democratic discourse.

The role of involvement and income in predicting large and small donations to college athletics

The purpose of the study was to classify donors who make large donations and those who make small donations to athletics programmes. In particular, the study investigated the degree to which involvement with the athletics programme, income and donor type discriminate individuals who make large donations from those who make small donations in an effort to predict donation level of prospect donors. The hypothesis that the three variables (involvement with the athletics programme, income and donor type) would classify athletics donors of small donations from athletics donors of larger donations was confirmed. The findings of the study provide theoretical and practical implications in predicting donation size, determining donor cultivation strategies and increasing fundraising effectiveness.

Taxing Political Donations: The Case for Corrective Taxes in Campaign Finance

Command-and-control regulations are generally thought to be inferior to incentive-based alternatives. This essay proposes an incentive-based approach for regulating campaign finance. In place of our current regime of contribution ceilings, the essay calls for a graduated system of contribution taxes. Rather than capping the size of political donations at a specified dollar level, we should tax donations based on a schedule of graduated rates - the larger the size of a contribution, the higher the level of taxation.Contribution taxes generate two primary advantages over contribution ceilings. First, contribution taxes preserve more total surplus. This surplus can be shared by the donors and by society as a whole, with society benefiting from the tax revenue. Second, contribution taxes lead fewer donors to divert their contributions through loopholes. We cannot possibly prevent all diversions of this sort under our current constitutional precedents, and these diversions serve to undermine our system of campaign finance. This essay also refutes the arguments that contribution taxes would engender greater inequality or corruption; that contribution taxes would be found unconstitutional; and that contribution taxes would be defeated by our inability to quantify the harms caused by political donations.

Do Government Subsidies To Nonprofits Crowd Out Donations or Donors?

The traditional test of the public-goods crowding-out effect may mask important impacts of government subsidies on private giving because it confounds the effects of subsidies on average donation size versus their effects on the number of donors . Using panel data on the U.S. nonprofit sector, the author shows that, although increased public funding has a neutral effect on total donations, it is associated with decreased average donations but a larger pool of donors.

Effect of Cause-Related Marketing on Attitudes and Purchase Intentions: The Moderating Role of Cause Involvement and Donation Size

SUMMARY The purpose of the present research was to examine the role of involvement and donation in moderating the effect of cause related marketing (CRM) and ordinary marketing (OM) on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. It is proposed that the level of involvement (i.e., high or low involvement) may make either veridical information (i.e., high involvement) or peripheral cues (i.e., low involvement) in the message more salient, and hence, more relevant and more important in the formation of attitudes and purchase intentions. Therefore, the level of donation size (i.e., high or low level) may be perceived either as an important element in the message (i.e., high involvement) or as a peripheral cue (i.e., low involvement). It is hypothesized that in conditions where there is a match between levels of involvement and donation (i.e., high-high or low-low), CRM would be superior to OM in creating favorable attitudes and purchase intentions whereas in conditions where there is a mismatch between (i.e., high-low and low-high), OM would be superior to CRM. To test these hypotheses, half of the subjects were shown painful images (i.e., high cause involvement) and the other half were shown pleasant images concerning the cause (i.e., low cause involvement). In one half of the ads, 5% of sales were claimed to be donated (i.e., high donation) and 0.1% in the other (i.e., low donation). In one half of the ads, a fictitious nonprofit organization (NPO) was affiliated with the experimental brand and claimed to work on the sponsored cause (i.e., CRM) and in the other half there was no mention of a specific cause (i.e., OM). Results from several ANOVA analyses supported the hypotheses and all hypotheses were accepted.

The Effect of a State Tax Credit on Giving to Community Foundations

The purpose of this study is to determine whether a tax credit provides an incentive for taxpayers to give to a certain type of charitable organization, the community foundation. The State of Michigan's 1988 Tax Credit for Community Foundations provides an opportunity to research this effect using data collected over five years from fifteen community foundations in Michigan. Results indicate that the size and number of individual and business donations to community foundations were positively influenced by the tax credit, implying that the tax credit was successful in achieving the goal of encouraging giving to these charitable organizations.

Memorial Distortions in Donation Data

In this study, participants' memory for charitable acts, including the amounts they donated to charity and the frequency of such donations, and also the processes associated with the recall of charitable acts was explored. Participants were Australian students who earned money for responding correctly to a decision-making task and then were given the opportunity to make a donation to a charity. Five weeks later they attempted to recall how much they had donated. Recall of the amount donated produced significant overestimations. A 2nd study examined estimates of donating frequency, and results suggested that the frequency of donating was overestimated. The discussion focuses on the validity of survey data on donation size and frequency and the processes associated with the recall of charitable acts.

Trends in Charitable Giving

AbstractThe charitable giving of UK households has changed considerably over the past 20 years. In particular, the proportion of households giving to charity fell by 5 percentage points between 1974 and 1993–94. An increase in the average size of donations meant that total voluntary income increased in real terms over the period, but, since 1988, voluntary income has stagnated. The greatest falls in the number of givers are among households in their twenties and thirties. There are clear trends in giving across households by age and income, with younger and poorer households tending to give less. But not only are today's younger households less likely to give than today's middle‐aged households; they are also less likely to give than today's middle‐aged households did when they were young. These generational trends in giving do not bode well for levels of voluntary income in the future. JEL classification: D12. D16.

Creating trust with major donors: The service encounter model

Although the wealthy individuals who create charitable trusts exert considerable influence on the $123 billion of charitable giving, very little is known about this segment. Aside from data about the size of donations and emerging information about their motivations, the philanthropic and marketing literature is largely silent on issues surrounding major philanthropic acts. For example, what aspects of the service encounter catalyze support and create a successful experience? What are the prior constituent, voluntary, and donor behaviors of individuals who create trusts exceeding $1 million? What support is required from nonprofit and external legal and financial advisers? This article provides a model of the trust creation process framed by insights from the services marketing literature, documents the process empirically, and draws out implications for nonprofit resource development.

Multiple Deescalating Requests, Statistical Information, and Compliance: A Field Experiment1

Although prior research on influence has identified numerous techniques for increasing donation rates (see e. g., Cialdini, 1988), the problem of increasing donation sizes has been neglected. We conducted a field experiment in a telemarketing fundraising context to examine the effectiveness of three influence techniques for increasing the size of donations. The results indicate that the multiple‐deescalating‐requests technique was effective for increasing donation sizes. However, statistical information‐based techniques were ineffective. Theoretical and applied implications of the results are discussed.