Large Gifts Research Articles

Looking a gift horse in the mouth: Suspicion of large gift expenditures undermines gift appreciation

AbstractPrior work shows that gift recipients are surprisingly insensitive to the amount of money givers spend, even though more expensive gifts represent a greater investment by givers and impart greater value to recipients. We suggest that recipients' apparent indifference may be explained by competing reactions to gift expenditure. Specifically, we propose that recipients are not unresponsive to gift expenditure, per se, but that money's association with instrumentality means that conspicuous monetary expenditures can cause recipients to contemplate givers' instrumental motives (i.e., become suspicious). Four studies show that large gift expenditures can cause recipients to become suspicious of givers' motives and that suspicion undermines recipients' otherwise positive reactions. We further show that expenditures that are less strongly associated with instrumentality (time and effort) and gifts that have a weaker association with money and instrumentality (experiential gifts) are less prone to suspicion and are appreciated more.

What to Do When You Receive Your Largest Gift Ever

What to Do When You Receive Your Largest Gift Ever

The Gifts of Erasmus

Abstract The article is a short introduction to the life-long gift-practice of Erasmus—the gifts he received, the gifts he gave, and the symbolic and moral meaning of the gift cycle of reception, gratitude, and reciprocation that pertained to a wide range of exchanges—from small objects to casks of wine to large gifts of money. His book dedications also belonged to that same gift cycle. His management of gifts was driven in part by necessity, as he needed funds and sometimes protection in order to pursue his studies and writing outside the normal framework of institutional structures. Gifts were a sign of his capacity to flourish within the community of friends (and donors) that he was able to draw around himself.

Вклады Шереметевых в Кирилло-Белозерский монастырь в XVI веке

The article studies gifts of the Sheremetev family to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery in the 16th century. It draws on materials of the first Gift book (vkladnaya kniga) of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery for 1559/60?1620s and on those of later gift inventory for 1618?40, Commemoration book (kormovaya kniga), acts, and other sources. The Gift book of the Kirillov Monastery 1559/60 ? 1620s was unknown to the author of a fundamental study on the Sheremetev family A. P. Barsukov and other researchers. Meanwhile, its materials clarify some data on the Sheremetevs’ gifts to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery and biographies of the members of this family. The Sheremetevs started making their donations to the monastery in late 1540s, when their career at the court began. The first Gift book contains information on donations made “in commemoration of the soul” of Ivan Bolshoi, Grigory, Nikita, and Ivan Menshoi Vasilyevich Sheremetevs. All of them, as well as the son and daughter of Ivan Bolshoi Vasilyevich Sheremetev (Yeremey and Agafya), the son and grandson of Ivan Menshoi Vasilyevich Sheremetev (Fedor Ivanovich and Alexei Fedorovich) were buried in the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery. The Sheremetevs' donations to the Kirillov Monastery were very rich. Especially large gifts were made by the eldest brother, Ivan Bolshoi Vasilievich, amounting to more than 1,500 rubles. The Gift book provides most accurate information on time and circumstances of the Sheremetevs’ donations to the monastery in the 16th century (in comparison with the Commemoration book and other sources). For example, the materials of the Gift book clarify the date of death of Semen Vasilyevich Sheremetev (October 8, 1557) and that of tonsure of Ivan Bolshoi Vasilyevich Sheremetev in the Kirillov Monastery (shortly after June 6, 1571). The authors note that, despite their successful career and service, the Sheremetevs did not enjoy the favor of Tsar Ivan and were under his suspicion. Therefore, it is the Kirillov Monastery, located far from the political storms of the 16th century and enjoying great prestige as a spiritual center, that the Sheremetevs choose as their family monastery and burial place.

The deserving or undeserving rich? New survey evidence on multimillionaire households in Europe

This article addresses two questions. First, when do people consider the rich to be deserving? A literature survey reveals that it is first and foremost the origin of great wealth that determine public attitudes towards the rich. Rich people “deserve” to be rich if their wealth is perceived as having resulted from competence and hard work rather than from inheritance. Second, who are the rich? Drawing on data from the second wave of the European Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS), it is found that multimillionaire households benefit disproportionately from wealth transfers. Large gifts and bequests alone, however, are not good predictors of rich household status. It is rather the highly educated top heir running a (family) business that best represents the rich in Europe. Such entrepreneurs who benefit from earned and unearned financial resources neither fully correspond to nor contradict the existing public beliefs in the “deservingness” of the rich. It is argued that, while still underresearched, it is the “hybrid rich” that dominate in the twenty-first-century capitalism that is marked by historically high levels of wealth inequality alongside inefficiencies in tax systems.

The Larger Gifts of Taxation: Foundations and Tax Reform in the Jim Crow South

AbstractIn “Disquisition on Government,” John C. Calhoun divided citizens into “tax-payers” and “tax-consumers,” foreshadowing the connection that would be made between taxation and citizenship rights in twentieth-century education policy and law. Recent scholarship has explored that relationship, analyzing the language of legal cases to demonstrate that court cases reflect citizens’ perceptions of economic stakes and related education rights. Northern foundations that focused on southern education reform during Jim Crow understood the importance of taxpayer perception to education reform and recognized that it was not a byproduct of tax policy but something that might be shaped by it. Foundations influenced education and taxation policies in North Carolina. Although they failed to address inequality and problems of the racial state, their work provides a useful framework for considering the role of both early twentieth-century foundations in education reform and, more generally, the role of foundations in civil society.

Turnover intention and job tenure of US fundraisers

AbstractFundraisers secure financial resources that organizations need to achieve their missions. Raising money, particularly large gifts, can follow years of relationship building with individual donors. When fundraisers leave these efforts can be set back substantially, making fundraiser turnover particularly worrisome and worthy of exploration. This analysis addressed the issue with US survey data (n = 1663) and examinination of three research questions. What are the job tenure and intent to leave of fundraisers? How is fundraiser job tenure affected by intent to leave? What relationships do job tenure and intent to leave have with fundraisers' individual demographics, position attributes, and organizational characteristics? We found that the study participants had current mean job tenures of 3.6 years (median = 2 years) and mean tenures across their fundraising jobs of 3.9 years (median = 3 years). Twenty percent intended to leave their organization and 7% intended to leave fundraising within the next year. Of the tested variables, salary consistently had the largest effects and was the most significant. Older and more experienced fundraisers had longer tenures. The study provides nuanced information about fundraisers' job‐related behaviors, includes careful attention to theory and related research, and presents specific ideas for organizational interventions for increasing fundraiser tenure.

Awareness and Attitudes of the Pakistani Population With Regard to Physician-Pharmaceutical Company Interaction: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Objective: To determine the awareness and attitudes of the Pakistani population regarding physician–pharmaceutical company interactions. Methods: The data were collected from primary health care clinics and pharmacy outlets located within cities of six randomly selected districts of the Punjab Province. Those individuals (age ≥18 years) who have just completed their visit to the physician and well understand Urdu language were approached. Descriptive analysis was performed for all variables by using SPSS (IBM version 26). Results: A total of 3,852 participants fully completed the study out of 4,301 (response rate 89.5%). Of those, 30.9% were female; two-thirds (66.7%) were aware of drug representatives’ visits to clinics. The majority were aware of pharmaceutical company material presence (or absence) in the physicians’ rooms (56.6%), company items with logos (66.8%), patient education materials (73.4%), and 60.8% thought that receiving gifts from companies was “wrong/unethical” practice for physicians, which was lower in comparison to other professions such as judges to accept gifts from lawyers (65.6%) and professional sports umpires to acknowledge gifts (64.3%). A minority said that they have lower trust on physicians for using drug company notepads or pens (16.7%), going on trips sponsored by the company (16.7%), accepting gifts <15,000 PKR (90.3 US$) (26.7%), and accepting gifts >15,000 PKR (90.3 US$) (40.0%). Conclusion: Survey participants were well aware of physician–pharmaceutical company interactions. Participants were more knowledgeable regarding the pharmaceutical company presence (or absence) in physicians’ offices than about gift-related practices of physicians. Trust on the physician was not affected by small gifts but by the large gifts.

Close More and Larger Gifts With a Mentoring and Coaching Program

Close More and Larger Gifts With a Mentoring and Coaching Program

Evolution of male nuptial gift and female remating: A quantitative genetic model

In some species of separate sexes, males present a nuptial gift containing nutrition to their mate. Producing a large nuptial gift is a considerable cost to the male, but it may improve his siring success if the female reduces the likelihood to accept another male after receiving a large gift. The female may receive a direct benefit by accepting another male who provides an additional nuptial gift. Additionally, the female may receive an indirect fitness benefit via laying offspring sired by a male who is able to produce a large nuptial gift. We formalized the multivariate quantitative genetics model describing the coevolution of the size of nuptial gift produced by the male (x) and the female’s propensity to engage in remating (y). We analyzed the model focusing two cases: [1] remating females receive no indirect fitness benefit, but enjoy direct benefit of nutrition; and [2] remating females receive no direct benefit, but enjoy an indirect fitness benefit due to a positive genetic correlation of x and y, which is possible if random mutations tend to make males produce small nuptial gifts. In both cases, the stable evolutionary equilibrium with neither nuptial gift nor remating (x-=y-=0) always exists. Another stable equilibrium may exist in which male produces nuptial gifts (x->0) and female engage in multiple mating (y->0). We discussed implications to the sexual conflict.

The Relative Importance of \u201cCooperative Context\u201d and Kinship in Structuring Cooperative Behavior

Kin relations have a strong theoretical and empirical basis for explaining cooperative behavior. Nevertheless, there is growing recognition that context—the cooperative environment of an individual—also shapes the willingness of individuals to cooperate. For nomadic pastoralists in Norway, cooperation among both kin and non-kin is an essential predictor for success. The northern parts of the country are characterized by a history of herder-herder competition exacerbating between-herder conflict, lack of trust, and subsequent coordination problems. In contrast, because of a history of herder-farmer competition, southern Norway is characterized by high levels of between-herder coordination and trust. This comparative study investigates the relative importance of “cooperative context” and kinship in structuring cooperative behavior using an experimental gift game. The main findings from this study were that in the South, a high level of cooperation around an individual pushes gifts to be distributed evenly among other herders. Nevertheless, kinship matters, since close kin give and receive larger gifts. In contrast, kinship seems to be the main factor affecting gift distribution in the North. Herders in the North are also concerned with distributing gifts equally, albeit limiting them to close kin: the level of intragroup cooperation drives gifts to be distributed evenly among other closely related herders. The observed regional contrasts in cooperative decisions fit with the different historical levels of conflict and trust in the two regions: whereas herders in the South are affected by both cooperative context and kinship, kinship seems to be the main determinant of cooperation in the North.

A randomized controlled trial to evaluate a behavioral economic strategy for improving mobility in veterans with chronic pain.

Rates of chronic pain and daily opioid use are higher among veterans relative to civilian populations. Increasing physical activity can reduce pain severity and decrease opioid use among patients with chronic pain. Behavioral economic strategies can improve physical activity levels but have been undertested in veterans with chronic pain. The objective of this study was to evaluate if a financial incentive combined with a loss aversion component—a “regret lottery” in which veterans could win money if they met a set goal or told how much they could have won had they met their goal—would increase physical activity levels among veterans with chronic pain. A 12-week single-blinded randomized controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT04013529) was designed. Veterans with chronic pain (N = 40) receiving care at a specialty pain clinic were eligible for participation, and were randomly assigned (1:1) to either (a) activity trackers and daily text message reminders to increase physical activity (“control arm”), or (b) the same plus a weekly regret lottery (“intervention arm”). For those in the intervention arm, participants who met their activity goal, had a chance to win a small ($30) or large ($100) gift card incentive; those who did not meet their goals were informed of what they would have won had they met their goal. The primary outcome, physical activity, was measured using self-reported physical activity and step counts using activity trackers. Secondary outcomes included changes in physical function, chronic pain severity, depression and opioid use. The sample was primarily white, male and disabled, with an average age of 57 years. No between-arm differences were noted for physical activity, physical function, chronic pain severity, depression or opioid use. Regret lottery-based approaches may be ineffective at increasing physical activity levels in veterans with chronic pain.Trial Registry: NCT04013529.

Evolution of nuptial gifts and its coevolutionary dynamics with male-like persistence traits of females for multiple mating

BackgroundMany male animals donate nutritive materials during courtship or mating to their female mates. Donation of large-sized gifts, though costly to prepare, can result in increased sperm transfer during mating and delayed remating of the females, resulting in higher paternity. Nuptial gifting sometimes causes severe female-female competition for obtaining gifts (i.e., sex-role reversal in mate competition) and selection on females to increase their mating rate, changing the intensity of sperm competition and the resultant paternity gains. We built a theoretical model to simulate such coevolutionary feedbacks between nuptial gift size (male trait) and propensity for multiple mating (female trait). Donation of nuptial gifts sometimes causes development of female persistence trait for gift acquisition. We also analyzed the causes and consequences of this type of traits, taking double receptacles for nutritious seminal gifts, which are known to occur in an insect group with a “female penis” (Neotrogla spp.), as an illustrative example.ResultsOur individual-based simulations demonstrated that female-female competition for male-derived nutrients always occur when the environment is oligotrophic and mating costs are low for females. However, a positive correlation between donated gift size and the resultant paternity gain was a requisite for the co-occurrence of large gifts and females’ competitive multiple mating for the gifts. When gift donation satisfied female demands and thus resulted in monandry, exaggeration of nuptial gift size also occurred under the assumption that the last male monopolizes paternity. The evolution of double slots for gift acquisition and digestion (female persistence trait) always occurred when males could not satisfy the demands of females for gifts. However, through coevolutionary reduction in male gift size, fixation of this trait in a population drastically reduced the average female fitness.ConclusionSperm usage patterns, which have rarely been examined for animals with nuptial gifts, can be a critical factor for determining the extent of exaggeration in nuptial gifting. Sex-role reversals in mate competition, as a result of donation of nuptial gifts from males to females, can involve the evolution of male-like, persistent traits in females that reduce population productivity, as is the case with persistence traits in males.

Sheldon Peck (1941-2021) Secretary of the EHASO, 1995-2009.

Sheldon Peck (1941-2021) Secretary of the EHASO, 1995-2009.

Modeling the antecedents and outcomes of perceived relationship investment (PRI) in nonprofit organizations

A lack of empirical studies prompted the development and testing of a model investigating the antecedents and outcomes of perceived relationship investment (PRI) in nonprofits. All parts of the model were supported including antecedent tactics of tangible rewards, interactivity, and information sharing, their effect on relationship quality, and positive behavioral intentions such as keeping the organization foremost in consideration of volunteer time or large gift allocation when time or financial resources allow.

The Evolving Distribution of Giving in the United States

I compute the share of U.S. household giving accounted for by the American tax units donating the largest amounts over the 1960–2012 period from repeated cross-sectional samples of federal income tax returns. The share of donations accounted for by a minority of top donors rose sharply over this period. Donor concentration has risen both because the largest gifts have grown larger and because more households give little or nothing in any given year.

Funny Money: Philanthropic Giving and the Money Illusion

This study argues that the size of philanthropic gifts is affected by donors’ perception of the value of their money. The essay examines aggregate giving to Bread for the World in former East Germany before and after two currency reforms and shows that decades of overvaluing the West German Deutschmark led East Germans to give less after the first currency reform while the second currency reform did not lead to such a drop off. The essay employs East German jokes to illustrate popular views of both East and West German currency that developed over time. It indicates that East Germans developed a perceived value of money separate from its real purchasing power, which affected their philanthropic donations. These findings are applicable to small and large philanthropic gifts, especially across currencies, as in international giving.

Understanding Motivations of Mega‐Gift Donors to Higher Education: A Qualitative Study

AbstractPatterns of giving to higher education by individual donors have changed in recent years, with large gifts accounting for an increasing percentage of the total. In light of this shift, understanding the motivations of donors who make very large gifts, commonly known as “mega‐gifts,” has become important. Efforts to explore these motivations run into access barriers. This article uses an innovative methodological approach to overcome this challenge. Drawing on the media coverage of mega‐gifts, the authors create donor biographies and carry out qualitative analysis of these donor biographies to examine donor motivations and evolution in motivations. The article draws on the existing literature to synthesize a typology of donor motivations and uses this typology to categorize the motivations of mega‐gift donors. The identification of additional subcategories under the broad category of impact is a significant contribution of this study and adds nuance to our understanding of mega‐gift donors to higher education institutions.

Hidden Persuaders: Do Small Gifts Lubricate Business Negotiations?

Gift-giving customs are ubiquitous in social, political, and business life. Legal regulation and industry guidelines for gifts are often based on the assumption that large gifts potentially influence behavior and create conflicts of interest, but small gifts do not. However, scientific evidence on the impact of small gifts on business relationships is scarce. We conducted a natural field experiment in collaboration with sales agents of a multinational consumer products company to study the influence of small gifts on the outcome of business negotiations. We find that small gifts matter. On average, sales representatives generate more than twice as much revenue when they distribute a small gift at the onset of their negotiations. However, we also find that small gifts tend to be counterproductive when purchasing and sales agents meet for the first time, suggesting that the nature of the business relationship crucially affects the profitability of gifts. This paper was accepted by John List, behavioral economics.

Philanthropic Partnerships in the Just City: Parks and Schools

The role of private funding and management in U.S. urban public services has expanded through the auspices of private nonprofit organizations in formal relationships with government and aided by large gifts from wealthy donors with visions for their cities, leading scholars to raise concerns about potential harm to democratic governance and displacement of public investment. Where do these private efforts fit into current policy initiatives to improve equity in schools and parks? Employing Susan Fainstein’s Just City framework, this article analyzes cases in which policy actors sought constraints on private dollars in an attempt to institutionalize equity into public private partnership (PPP) regimes. The Portland, Oregon, school board required that school foundations share funds with a districtwide foundation for reallocation. In New York City, unsuccessful state legislation proposed reallocating private funds but executive action redirected public city funds, and largely nonmonetary private resources. These cases can inform policymakers striving for just cities.