IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rco/dpaper/493.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Online Fundraising Increase Charitable Giving? A Nationwide Field Experiment on Facebook

Author

Listed:
  • Maja Adena

    (WZB Berlin)

  • Anselm Hager

    (HU Berlin)

Abstract

Does online fundraising increase charitable giving? Using the Facebook advertising tool, we implemented a natural field experiment across Germany, randomly assigning almost 8,000 postal codes to Save the Children fundraising videos or to a pure control. We studied changes in the donation revenue and frequency for Save the Children and other charities by postal code. Our geo-randomized design circumvented many difficulties inherent in studies based on click-through data, especially substitution and measurement issues. We found that (i) video fundraising increased donation revenue and frequency to Save the Children during the campaign and in the subsequent five weeks; (ii) the campaign was profitable for the fundraiser; and (iii) the effects were similar independent of video content and impression assignment strategy. However, we also found some crowding out of donations to other similar charities or projects. Finally, we demonstrated that click data may be an inappropriate proxy for donations and recommend that managers use careful experimental designs that can plausibly evaluate the effects of advertising on relevant outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:rco:dpaper:493
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://rationality-and-competition.de/wp-content/uploads/discussion_paper/493.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christine Exley, 2018. "Incentives for Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Reputations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(5), pages 2460-2471, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J. & Jones, Kristy & Leister, C. Matthew, 2018. "Paternalistic giving: Restricting recipient choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 143-170.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. Null, C., 2011. "Warm glow, information, and inefficient charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 455-465, June.
    8. Null, C., 2011. "Warm glow, information, and inefficient charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5), pages 455-465.
    9. 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.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Christine L. Exley, 2020. "Using Charity Performance Metrics as an Excuse Not to Give," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 553-563, February.
    3. 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.
    4. Adena, Maja & Alizade, Jeyhun & Bohner, Frauke & Harke, Julian & Mesters, Fabio, 2019. "Quality certification for nonprofits, charitable giving, and donor's trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 75-100.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    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. Exley, Christine L. & Petrie, Ragan, 2018. "The impact of a surprise donation ask," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 152-167.
    9. Zachary Halberstam & James R. Hines Jr., 2023. "Quality-Aware Tax Incentives for Charitable Contributions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10250, CESifo.
    10. Metzger, Laura, 2015. "Making an impact? The importance of aid effectiveness for charitable giving. A laboratory experiment," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112835, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "Identifying self-image concerns from motivated beliefs: Does it matter how and whom you ask?," Monash Economics Working Papers 2021-17, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2022. "Stepping Stone: Identifying self-image concerns from motivated beliefs: Does it matter how and whom you ask?," Monash Economics Working Papers 2022-05, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    15. 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.
    16. Owens, Mark F. & Rennhoff, Adam D. & Baum, Charles L., 2018. "Consumer demand for charitable purchases: Evidence from a field experiment on Girl Scout Cookie sales," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 47-63.
    17. Jasjit Singh & Nina Teng & Serguei Netessine, 2019. "Philanthropic Campaigns and Customer Behavior: Field Experiments on an Online Taxi Booking Platform," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(2), pages 913-932, February.
    18. Gangadharan, Lata & Grossman, Philip J. & Xue, Nina, 2023. "Using willingness to pay to measure the strength of altruistic motives," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    19. 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.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    charitable giving; field experiments; fundraising; social media; competition;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:rco:dpaper:493. 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: Viviana Lalli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://rationality-and-competition.de .

    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.