IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/218840.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quality certification for nonprofits, charitable giving, and donor's trust: Experimental evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Adena, Maja
  • Alizade, Jeyhun
  • Bohner, Frauke
  • Harke, Julian
  • Mesters, Fabio

Abstract

In an experiment, we test the impact of quality certificates on donations to a charity. Compared to the control group, participants presented with a quality certificate chose higher donations by around 10% and reported higher trust in the same charity. The choice of donation values over time shows strong persistence such that the difference between the two groups remained even after all participants were informed about the certificate. Since the initially uninformed donors did not adjust their donations upwards to a sufficient extent, we conclude that quality certification is less likely to affect giving by existing donors. Finally, we find no significant negative effect of information about certificate fees.

Suggested Citation

  • Adena, Maja & Alizade, Jeyhun & Bohner, Frauke & Harke, Julian & Mesters, Fabio, 2019. "Quality certification for nonprofits, charitable giving, and donor's trust: Experimental evidence," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 159, pages 75-100.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:218840
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/218840/1/Full-text-article-Adena-et-al-Quality-certification-for.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Krasteva, Silvana & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2013. "(Un)Informed charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 14-26.
    2. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2016. "Online fundraising, self-image, and the long-term impact of ask avoidance," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145535, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Karlan, Dean & Wood, Daniel H., 2017. "The effect of effectiveness: Donor response to aid effectiveness in a direct mail fundraising experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 1-8.
    4. Stefano DellaVigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier, 2012. "Testing for Altruism and Social Pressure in Charitable Giving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(1), pages 1-56.
    5. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    6. Steffen Huck & Imran Rasul & Andrew Shephard, 2015. "Comparing Charitable Fundraising Schemes: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment and a Structural Model," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 326-369, May.
    7. Nadine Chlaß & Lata Gangadharan & Kristy Jones, 2015. "Charitable Giving and Intermediation," Monash Economics Working Papers 18-15, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    8. Ernst Fehr, 2009. "On The Economics and Biology of Trust," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 235-266, 04-05.
    9. Cherry, Todd L. & Kroll, Stephan & Shogren, Jason F., 2005. "The impact of endowment heterogeneity and origin on public good contributions: evidence from the lab," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 357-365, July.
    10. Luigi Butera & Jeffrey Horn, 2013. "Good News, Bad News, and Social Image: The Market for Charitable Giving," Working Papers 1041, George Mason University, Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science, revised Mar 2016.
    11. John A. List & David Lucking-Reiley, 2002. "The Effects of Seed Money and Refunds on Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from a University Capital Campaign," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 215-233, February.
    12. James Andreoni, 2006. "Leadership Giving in Charitable Fund‐Raising," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 8(1), pages 1-22, January.
    13. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen & Rasul, Imran, 2014. "Charitable Giving and Nonbinding Contribution-Level Suggestions - Evidence from a Field Experiment," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 1(3), pages 275-293, May.
    14. David Reinstein & Gerhard Riener, 2012. "Decomposing desert and tangibility effects in a charitable giving experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(1), pages 229-240, March.
    15. Jeremy Clark, 2002. "House Money Effects in Public Good Experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(3), pages 223-231, December.
    16. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 436-444, June.
    17. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen & Rasul, Imran, 2017. "Testing consumer theory: evidence from a natural field experiment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 3(2), pages 89-108.
    18. Krasteva, Silvana & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2016. "Information, competition, and the quality of charities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 64-77.
    19. Glenn Harrison, 2007. "House money effects in public good experiments: Comment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(4), pages 429-437, December.
    20. Carlsson, Fredrik & He, Haoran & Martinsson, Peter, 2009. "Easy come, easy go - The role of windfall money in lab and field experiments," Working Papers in Economics 374, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    21. Tinkelman, Daniel, 2004. "Using nonprofit organization-level financial data to infer managers' fund-raising strategies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 2181-2192, August.
    22. Lucy Ackert & Narat Charupat & Bryan Church & Richard Deaves, 2006. "An experimental examination of the house money effect in a multi-period setting," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(1), pages 5-16, April.
    23. Vesterlund, Lise, 2003. "The informational value of sequential fundraising," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 627-657, March.
    24. John A. List & Azeem M. Shaikh & Yang Xu, 2019. "Multiple hypothesis testing in experimental economics," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(4), pages 773-793, December.
    25. Jens Hainmueller & Michael J. Hiscox & Sandra Sequeira, 2015. "Consumer Demand for Fair Trade: Evidence from a Multistore Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 242-256, May.
    26. repec:feb:framed:0087 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Khanna, Jyoti & Posnett, John & Sandler, Todd, 1995. "Charity donations in the UK: New evidence based on panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 257-272, February.
    28. Null, C., 2011. "Warm glow, information, and inefficient charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 455-465, June.
    29. M. Fong, Christina & Oberholzer-Gee, Felix, 2011. "Truth in giving: Experimental evidence on the welfare effects of informed giving to the poor," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 436-444.
    30. Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2013. "Experimental evidence of self-image concerns as motivation for giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 19-27.
    31. James Andreoni & Justin M. Rao & Hannah Trachtman, 2017. "Avoiding the Ask: A Field Experiment on Altruism, Empathy, and Charitable Giving," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(3), pages 625-653.
    32. Khanna, Jyoti & Sandler, Todd, 2000. "Partners in giving:: The crowding-in effects of UK government grants," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(8), pages 1543-1556, August.
    33. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2017. "Matching donations without crowding out? Some theoretical considerations, a field, and a lab experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 32-42.
    34. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    35. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2017. "Matching Donations Without Crowding Out?," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 16, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    36. Null, C., 2011. "Warm glow, information, and inefficient charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 455-465.
    37. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 1996. "Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 181-191, October.
    38. Posnett, John & Sandler, Todd, 1989. "Demand for charity donations in private non-profit markets : The case of the U.K," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 187-200, November.
    39. Brown, Alexander L. & Meer, Jonathan & Williams, J. Forrest, 2017. "Social distance and quality ratings in charity choice," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 9-15.
    40. Okten, Cagla & Weisbrod, Burton A., 2000. "Determinants of donations in private nonprofit markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 255-272, February.
    41. Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J., 2003. "Rebate versus matching: does how we subsidize charitable contributions matter?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 681-701, March.
    42. Fredrik Carlsson & Haoran He & Peter Martinsson, 2013. "Easy come, easy go," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(2), pages 190-207, June.
    43. Katarina Svitkova & Andreas Ortmann, 2006. "Certification as a Viable Quality Assurance Mechanism: Theory and Suggestive Evidence," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp288, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    44. Jason Dana & Roberto Weber & Jason Kuang, 2007. "Exploiting moral wiggle room: experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(1), pages 67-80, October.
    45. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2016. "Online fundraising, self-deception, and the long-term impact of ask avoidance," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2016-306, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diederich, Johannes & Epperson, Raphael & Goeschl, Timo, 2021. "How to Design the Ask? Funding Units vs. Giving Money," Working Papers 0698, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    2. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2019. "Giving once, giving twice: A two-period field experiment on intertemporal crowding in charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 127-134.
    3. Na-Eun Cho & Yue Maggie Zhou, 2021. "Profits, Reputation, and the Risk of Medical Malpractice Liability," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 228-243, September.
    4. Adena, Maja & Hager, Anselm, 2020. "Does online fundraising increase charitable giving? A nation-wide field experiment on Facebook," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change SP II 2020-302, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Feine, Gregor & Groh, Elke D. & von Loessl, Victor & Wetzel, Heike, 2023. "The double dividend of social information in charitable giving: Evidence from a framed field experiment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    6. Nadine Chlaß & Lata Gangadharan & Kristy Jones, 2023. "Charitable giving and intermediation: a principal agent problem with hidden prices," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(4), pages 941-961.
    7. Chandrayee Chatterjee & James C. Cox & Michael K. Price & Florian Rundhammer, 2020. "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Understanding How State Tax Credits Impact Charitable Giving," NBER Working Papers 27163, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Johannes Diederich & Catherine C. Eckel & Raphael Epperson & Timo Goeschl & Philip J. Grossman, 2022. "Subsidizing unit donations: matches, rebates, and discounts compared," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(2), pages 734-758, April.
    9. Baudier, Patricia & Kondrateva, Galina & Ammi, Chantal, 2023. "Can blockchain enhance motivation to donate: The moderating impact of religion on donors' behavior in the USA's charity organizations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    10. Chandrayee Chatterjee & James C. Cox & Michael K. Price & Florian Rundhammer, 2020. "Competition Among Charities: Field Experimental Evidence from a State Income Tax Credit for Charitable Giving," Experimental Economics Center Working Paper Series 2020-01, Experimental Economics Center, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Billur Aksoy & Silvana Krasteva, 2020. "When does less information translate into more giving to public goods?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(4), pages 1148-1177, December.
    2. Metzger, Laura & Günther, Isabel, 2019. "Making an impact? The relevance of information on aid effectiveness for charitable giving. A laboratory experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 18-33.
    3. Butera, Luigi & Horn, Jeffrey, 2020. "“Give less but give smart”: Experimental evidence on the effects of public information about quality on giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 59-76.
    4. Christine L. Exley, 2020. "Using Charity Performance Metrics as an Excuse Not to Give," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 553-563, February.
    5. Drouvelis, Michalis & Marx, Benjamin M., 2022. "Can charitable appeals identify and exploit belief heterogeneity?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 631-649.
    6. Adena, Maja & Huck, Steffen, 2022. "Personalized fundraising: A field experiment on threshold matching of donations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1-20.
    7. Butera, Luigi & Houser, Daniel, 2018. "Delegating altruism: Toward an understanding of agency in charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 99-109.
    8. Michalis Drouvelis & Benjamin M. Marx, 2021. "Dimensions of donation preferences: the structure of peer and income effects," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(1), pages 274-302, March.
    9. Gallier, Carlo & Goeschl, Timo & Kesternich, Martin & Lohse, Johannes & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2023. "Inter-charity competition under spatial differentiation: Sorting, crowding, and spillovers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 457-468.
    10. Zachary Halberstam & James R. Hines Jr., 2023. "Quality-Aware Tax Incentives for Charitable Contributions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10250, CESifo.
    11. Jan Schmitz, 2021. "Is Charitable Giving a Zero-Sum Game? The Effect of Competition Between Charities on Giving Behavior," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(10), pages 6333-6349, October.
    12. Diederich, Johannes & Goeschl, Timo, 2017. "To mitigate or not to mitigate: The price elasticity of pro-environmental behavior," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 209-222.
    13. Krasteva, Silvana & Saboury, Piruz, 2021. "Informative fundraising: The signaling value of seed money and matching gifts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    14. Karlan, Dean & List, John A., 2020. "How can Bill and Melinda Gates increase other people's donations to fund public goods?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    15. Maja Adena & Rustamdjan Hakimov & Steffen Huck, 2024. "Charitable Giving by the Poor: A Field Experiment in Kyrgyzstan," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 70(1), pages 633-646, January.
    16. Saboury, Piruz & Krasteva, Silvana & Palma, Marco A., 2022. "The effect of seed money and matching gifts in fundraising: A lab experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 425-453.
    17. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    18. Exley, Christine L. & Petrie, Ragan, 2018. "The impact of a surprise donation ask," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 152-167.
    19. Maja Adena & Anselm Hager, 2024. "Does Online Fundraising Increase Charitable Giving? A Nationwide Field Experiment on Facebook," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 493, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    20. Jade Wong & Andreas Ortman, 2013. "Do Donors Care About the Price of Giving? A Review of the Evidence, with Some Theory to Organize It," Discussion Papers 2013-22, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    nonprofit certification; charitable giving; experiment; trust;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • C99 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Other
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:218840. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.