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Independent vs. Coordinated Fundraising: Understanding the Role of Information

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  • Eckel, Catherine
  • Guney, Begum
  • Uler, Neslihan

Abstract

We use “real donation” laboratory experiments to compare independent fundraising, where donation requests from different charities arrive sequentially to potential donors, with coordinated fundraising, where donation requests from different charities arrive simultaneously. We find that coordinated fundraising generates significantly larger total donations compared to independent fundraising. We show that the order of requests affects the level of donations only in independent fundraising; in particular, participants donate larger amounts to charities whose requests arrive earlier. We then test whether these differences might be explained by the informational asymmetry between these two fundraising mechanisms by varying the information received by the subjects.

Suggested Citation

  • Eckel, Catherine & Guney, Begum & Uler, Neslihan, 2020. "Independent vs. Coordinated Fundraising: Understanding the Role of Information," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:127:y:2020:i:c:s0014292120301082
    DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103476
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Giacomo Degli Antoni & Marco Faillo, 2021. "The number but not the variety of nonprofit organizations affects donations: evidence from an experiment," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 68(3), pages 281-299, September.
    2. Fanghella, Valeria & Thøgersen, John, 2022. "Experimental evidence of moral cleansing in the interpersonal and environmental domains," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. 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.
    4. Luca Corazzini & Christopher Cotton & Enrico Longo & Tommaso Reggiani, 2021. "The Gates Effect in Public Goods Experiments: How Donations Flow to the Recipients Favored by the Wealthy," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2021-13, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    5. Alt, Marius & Gallier, Carlo, 2022. "Incentives and intertemporal behavioral spillovers: A two-period experiment on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 959-972.
    6. 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.
    7. Luca Corazzini & Christopher Cotton & Enrico Longo & Tommaso Reggiani, 2022. "Pro-Rich and Progressive: Policy Selection and Contributions in Threshold Public Goods Experiments," Working Paper 1471, Economics Department, Queen's University.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Charitable giving; Independent fundraising; Simultaneous solicitation; Information; laboratory experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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