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A Field Experiment on Directed Giving at a Public University

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  • Catherine C. Eckel
  • David Herberich
  • Jonathan Meer

Abstract

The use of directed giving - allowing donors to target their gifts to specific organizations or functions - is pervasive in fundraising, yet little is known about its effectiveness. We conduct a field experiment at a public university in which prospective donors are presented with either an opportunity to donate to the unrestricted Annual Fund, or an opportunity of donating to the Annual Fund and directing some or all of their donation towards the academic college from which they graduated. While there is no effect on the probability of giving, donations are significantly larger when there is the option of directing. However, the value of the option does not come directly from use, as very few donors choose to direct their gift.

Suggested Citation

  • Catherine C. Eckel & David Herberich & Jonathan Meer, 2014. "A Field Experiment on Directed Giving at a Public University," NBER Working Papers 20180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20180
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    1. Small, Deborah A & Loewenstein, George, 2003. "Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 5-16, January.
    2. Batista, Catia & Silverman, Dan & Yang, Dean, 2015. "Directed giving: Evidence from an inter-household transfer experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 2-21.
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    Cited by:

    1. Ashley V Whillans & Elizabeth W Dunn, 2018. "Agentic appeals increase charitable giving in an affluent sample of donors," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Catherine C. Eckel & Benjamin A. Priday & Rick K. Wilson, 2018. "Charity Begins at Home: A Lab-in-the-Field Experiment on Charitable Giving," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-22, November.
    3. Abraham, Diya & Corazzini, Luca & Fišar, Miloš & Reggiani, Tommaso, 2023. "Coordinating donations via an intermediary: The destructive effect of a sunk overhead cost," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 287-304.
    4. Batista, Catia & Silverman, Dan & Yang, Dean, 2015. "Directed giving: Evidence from an inter-household transfer experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 2-21.
    5. Tatarnikova, Olga & Duchêne, Sébastien & Sentis, Patrick & Willinger, Marc, 2023. "Portfolio instability and socially responsible investment: Experiments with financial professionals and students," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    6. Jürgen Fleiß & Kurt A. Ackermann & Eva Fleiß & Ryan O. Murphy & Alfred Posch, 2020. "Social and environmental preferences: measuring how people make tradeoffs among themselves, others, and collective goods," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 28(3), pages 1049-1067, September.
    7. John A. List & James J. Murphy & Michael K. Price & Alexander G. James, 2019. "Do Appeals to Donor Benefits Raise More Money than Appeals to Recipient Benefits? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment with Pick.Click.Give," NBER Working Papers 26559, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Preeti Narwal & J. K. Nayak & Shivam Rai, 2022. "Assessing Customers' Moral Disengagement from Reciprocity Concerns in Participative Pricing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(2), pages 537-554, June.
    9. Christine L. Exley, 2020. "Using Charity Performance Metrics as an Excuse Not to Give," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 553-563, February.
    10. 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.
    11. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2022. "Risk-return trade-offs in the context of environmental impact: a lab-in-the-field experiment with finance professionals," Working Papers hal-03883121, HAL.
    12. Chang, Chia-Chi & Chen, Po-Yu, 2019. "Which maximizes donations: Charitable giving as an incentive or incentives for charitable giving?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 65-75.
    13. 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.
    14. Portillo, Javier E. & Stinn, Joseph, 2018. "Overhead aversion: Do some types of overhead matter more than others?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 40-50.
    15. repec:grz:wpsses:2014-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Sébastien Duchêne & Adrien Nguyen-Huu & Dimitri Dubois & Marc Willinger, 2021. "Why finance professionals hold green and brown assets? A lab-in-the-field experiment [Pourquoi investir dans le vert et le brun ? Une expérience sur des professionnels de la finance]," Working Papers hal-03285376, HAL.
    17. Heist, H. Daniel & Cnaan, Ram A., 2018. "Price and agency effects on charitable giving behavior," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 129-138.
    18. 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.
    19. Ernan Haruvy & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Greg Allenby & Russell Belk & Catherine Eckel & Robert Fisher & Sherry Xin Li & John A. List & Yu Ma & Yu Wang, 2020. "Fundraising design: key issues, unifying framework, and open puzzles," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 371-380, December.
    20. Gee, Laura K. & Kiyawat, Anoushka & Meer, Jonathan & Schreck, Michael J., 2024. "Pivotal or popular: The effects of social information and feeling pivotal on civic actions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 219(C), pages 404-413.
    21. Diya Elizabeth Abraham & Luca Corazzini & Miloš Fišar & Tommaso Reggiani, 2021. "Delegation and Overhead Aversion with Multiple Threshold Public Goods," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-14, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    22. Martin Spann & Robert Zeithammer & Marco Bertini & Ernan Haruvy & Sandy D. Jap & Oded Koenigsberg & Vincent Mak & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Bernd Skiera & Manoj Thomas, 2018. "Beyond Posted Prices: the Past, Present, and Future of Participative Pricing Mechanisms," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 5(1), pages 121-136, March.
    23. Judd B. Kessler & Katherine L. Milkman & C. Yiwei Zhang, 2019. "Getting the Rich and Powerful to Give," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(9), pages 4049-4062, September.
    24. 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.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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