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Ask and Ye Shall Receive: The Effect of the Appeals Scale on Consumers' Donation Behavior

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  • Pierre Desmet

    (DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management - Université Paris Dauphine-PSL - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ESSEC Business School)

  • Fred M. Feinberg

Abstract

Managers in the fundraising sector face the constant challenge of solliciting donations from a population who may or may not have donated before. Rather than merely asking respondents what they wish to donate, it is standard practice to present a set of suggested amounts -the appeals scale- in making donation requests. With a large scale field trial, coupled with a donation database from a French charity, we find with a segment-level Bayesian model, a very significant influence of the appeals scale and of 'round' scale values, such as those appearing on common bank notes, on distribution of donations.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Desmet & Fred M. Feinberg, 2003. "Ask and Ye Shall Receive: The Effect of the Appeals Scale on Consumers' Donation Behavior," Post-Print halshs-00143387, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00143387
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Indranil Goswami & Oleg Urminsky, 2016. "When should the ask be a nudge? The Effect of Default Amounts on Charitable Donations," Natural Field Experiments 00659, The Field Experiments Website.
    3. Schniter, Eric & Sheremeta, Roman & Shields, Timothy, 2015. "The Problem with All-or-nothing Trust Games: What Others Choose Not to Do Matters In Trust-based Exchange," MPRA Paper 68561, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. 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.
    5. Rachel Croson & Jen Shang, 2006. "Field experiments in charitable contribution: The impact of social influence on the voluntary provision of public goods," Natural Field Experiments 00323, The Field Experiments Website.
    6. Dorina Hysenbelli & Enrico Rubaltelli & Rino Rumiati, 2013. "Others' opinions count, but not all of them: anchoring to ingroup versus outgroup members' behavior in charitable giving," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 8(6), pages 678-690, November.
    7. Steffen Altmann & Armin Falk & Paul Heidhues & Rajshri Jayaraman & Marrit Teirlinck, 2019. "Defaults and Donations: Evidence from a Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(5), pages 808-826, December.
    8. Chan, Nathan W. & Wolk, Leonard, 2020. "Cost-effective giving with multiple public goods," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 130-145.
    9. Thomas, Suman Ann & Feng, Shanfei & Krishnan, Trichy V., 2015. "To retain? To upgrade? The effects of direct mail on regular donation behavior," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 48-63.
    10. Rachel Croson & Americus Reed & Jen Shang, 2007. "We give more: The impact of identity and the mere information effect on donation behavior," Natural Field Experiments 00324, The Field Experiments Website.
    11. Briers, B.M.E. & Pandelaere, M. & Warlop, L., 2007. "Adding exchange to charity : A reference price explanation," Other publications TiSEM 7b0069ad-8251-4e7d-82ba-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Patty Jansen & Tobias Gössling & Toon Bullens, 2011. "Towards Shared Social Responsibility: A Study of Consumers’ Willingness to Donate Micro-Insurances when Taking Out Their Own Insurance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 100(1), pages 175-190, April.
    13. Park, Sohyeon & Yoon, Song Oh, 2022. "The effects of solicitation and target amounts on consumers’ charitable giving decisions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 279-289.
    14. Verhaert, Griet Alice & Van den Poel, Dirk, 2011. "Improving Campaign Success Rate by Tailoring Donation Requests along the Donor Lifecycle," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 51-63.
    15. Hannes Koppel & Günther G. Schulze, 2009. "On the Channels of Pro-Social Behavior Evidence from a natural field experiment," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-102, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    16. Briers, Barbara & Pandelaere, Mario & Warlop, Luk, 2007. "Adding exchange to charity: A reference price explanation," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 15-30, January.
    17. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:6:p:678-690 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Christoph Feldhaus & Tassilo Sobotta & Peter Werner, 2019. "Norm Uncertainty and Voluntary Payments in the Field," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1855-1866, April.
    19. Ilya O. Ryzhov & Bin Han & Jelena Bradić, 2016. "Cultivating Disaster Donors Using Data Analytics," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(3), pages 849-866, March.
    20. Kevin F. McCardle & Kumar Rajaram & Christopher S. Tang, 2009. "A Decision Analysis Tool for Evaluating Fundraising Tiers," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 6(1), pages 4-13, March.
    21. De Bruyn, Arnaud & Prokopec, Sonja, 2017. "Assimilation-contrast theory in action: Operationalization and managerial impact in a fundraising context," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 367-381.

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