IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/115157.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Saeri, Alexander K.
  • Slattery, Peter
  • Lee, Joannie
  • Houlden, Thomas
  • Farr, Neil
  • Gelber, Romy L.
  • Stone, Jake
  • Huuskes, Lee
  • Timmons, Shane
  • Windle, Kai
  • Spajic, Luke
  • Freeman, Luke
  • Moss, David
  • Behar, Jon
  • Schubert, Stefan
  • Grundy, Emily A.C.
  • Zorker, Michael

Abstract

Many charities rely on donations to support their work addressing some of the world’s most pressing problems. We conducted a meta-review to determine what interventions work to increase charitable donations. We found 21 systematic reviews incorporating 1339 primary studies and over 2,139,938 participants. Our meta-meta-analysis estimated the average effect of an intervention on charitable donation size and incidence: r = 0.08 (95% CI [0.03, 0.12]). Due to limitations in the included systematic reviews, we are not certain this estimate reflects the true overall effect size. The most robust evidence found suggests charities could increase donations by (1) emphasising individual beneficiaries, (2) increasing the visibility of donations, (3) describing the impact of the donation, and (4) enacting or promoting tax-deductibility of the charity. We make recommendations for improving primary research and reviews about charitable donations, and how to apply the meta-review findings to increase charitable donations.

Suggested Citation

  • Saeri, Alexander K. & Slattery, Peter & Lee, Joannie & Houlden, Thomas & Farr, Neil & Gelber, Romy L. & Stone, Jake & Huuskes, Lee & Timmons, Shane & Windle, Kai & Spajic, Luke & Freeman, Luke & Moss,, 2022. "What works to increase charitable donations? A meta-review with meta-meta-analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115157, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:115157
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/115157/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jenni, Karen E & Loewenstein, George, 1997. "Explaining the "Identifiable Victim Effect."," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 235-257, May-June.
    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. Kim, Joonkyung & Zhao, Min & Soman, Dilip, 2023. "Converging vs diverging: The effect of visual representation of goal structure on financial decisions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 362-377.
    2. Heyes, Anthony & Lyon, Thomas P. & Martin, Steve, 2018. "Salience games: Private politics when public attention is limited," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 396-410.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    4. Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2020. "Moral judgment of environmental harm caused by a single versus multiple wrongdoers: A survey experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    5. Chuan, Amanda & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2014. "“Feel the Warmth” glow: A field experiment on manipulating the act of giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 198-211.
    6. Dwight R. Lee & J. R. Clark, 2018. "Can behavioral economists improve economic rationality?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 23-40, January.
    7. Ben Greiner & Werner Güth & Ro’i Zultan, 2012. "Social communication and discrimination: a video experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 398-417, September.
    8. Ehsan Taheri & Chen Wang, 2018. "Eliciting Public Risk Preferences in Emergency Situations," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 223-241, December.
    9. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:595-606 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Heizler, Odelia & Israeli, Osnat, 2021. "The identifiable victim effect and public opinion toward immigration; a natural experiment study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    11. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:4:p:397-406 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Tilman Br�ck & Manuel Schubert, 2014. "The Perception of Lethal Risks - Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," HiCN Working Papers 188, Households in Conflict Network.
    13. Lenka Fiala & Charles N. Noussair, 2017. "Charitable Giving, Emotions, And The Default Effect," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1792-1812, October.
    14. Antonio Filippin & Marco Mantovani, 2024. "Moral Preferences over Health-Wealth Trade-offs," Working Papers 531, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.
    15. Charness, Gary & Gneezy, Uri, 2008. "What's in a name? Anonymity and social distance in dictator and ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-35, October.
    16. Marko Pitesa & Stefan Thau & Madan M. Pillutla, 2013. "Cognitive control and socially desirable behavior: The role of interpersonal impact," Working paper serie RMT - Grenoble Ecole de Management hal-00853900, HAL.
    17. Claude Berrebi & Hanan Yonah, 2016. "Terrorism and philanthropy: the effect of terror attacks on the scope of giving by individuals and households," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 171-194, December.
    18. Jay L. Caulfield & Catharyn A. Baird & Felissa K. Lee, 2022. "The Ethicality of Point-of-Sale Marketing Campaigns: Normative Ethics Applied to Cause-Related Checkout Charities," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(4), pages 799-814, February.
    19. Jennifer Amsterlaw & Brian Zikmund-Fisher & Angela Fagerlin & Peter A. Ubel, 2006. "Can avoidance of complications lead to biased healthcare decisions?," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 1, pages 64-75, July.
    20. Erlandsson, Arvid & Västfjäll, Daniel & Sundfelt, Oskar & Slovic, Paul, 2016. "Argument-inconsistency in charity appeals: Statistical information about the scope of the problem decrease helping toward a single identified victim but not helping toward many non-identified victims ," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 126-140.
    21. Pinar Yildirim & Andrei Simonov & Maria Petrova & Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2020. "Are Political and Charitable Giving Substitutes? Evidence from the United States," NBER Working Papers 26616, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Briscese, Guglielmo, 2019. "Generous by default: A field experiment on designing defaults that align with past behaviour on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    behaviour change; charity; meta-meta-analysis; meta-review; overview of reviews; philanthropy; prosocial behaviour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    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:ehl:lserod:115157. 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: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.