Can mass fundraising harm your core business? A field experiment on how fundraising affects ticket sales

Maja Adena and Steffen Huck

Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Economics of Change from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: Some companies engage in mass fundraising in addition to their core business. Via a corporate social responsibility (CSR) channel this may increase sales. However, ask avoidance, if present, could imply that fundraising activities may harm a company's core business. We examine how asking for donations affects ticket sales of a publicly owned leading opera company. In two large-scale randomized controlled trials with over 50,000 opera visitors, who are asked to donate for an opera-organized social youth project, we find that donations can crowd out ticket expenditure during a campaign. But for the longer run we observe a precisely estimated null effect.

Keywords: Charitable giving; field experiments; ask avoidance; corporate social responsibility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D12 D64 L21 M14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-isf
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/242285/1/ii19-304r.pdf (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Can mass fundraising harm your core business? A field experiment on how fundraising affects ticket sales (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wzbeoc:spii2019304r

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