How to design the ask?: funding units vs. giving money

Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund, rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8,673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can significa...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diederich, Johannes (Author) , Epperson, Raphael (Author) , Goeschl, Timo (Author)
Format: Book/Monograph Working Paper
Language:English
Published: Innsbruck, Austria Faculty of Economics and Statistics, University of Innsbruck [2022]
Edition:This version: December 9, 2022
Series:Working papers in economics and statistics 2022, 18
In: Working papers in economics and statistics (2022, 18)

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Online Access:Verlag, kostenfrei: https://econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:inn:wpaper:2022-18
Verlag, kostenfrei: https://eeecon.uibk.ac.at/wopec2/repec/inn/wpaper/2022-18.pdf
Resolving-System, kostenfrei: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/273691
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Author Notes:Johannes Diederich, Raphael Epperson, Timo Goeschl
Description
Summary:Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund, rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8,673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can significantly boost giving above and beyond the standard money donation scheme. A decomposition of the underlying mechanisms shows patterns consistent with the conjecture that unit donations increase impact salience and leverage donors' cognitive biases by changing the metric of the donation space. The potential increase in donations likely outweighs the complications of designing a unit scheme, but requires expert handling of the choice of unit sizes.
Physical Description:Online Resource