Water the Flowers You Want to Grow? Evidence on Private Recognition and Donor Loyalty

Benjamin Bittschi, Nadja Dwenger and Johannes Rincke

No 8424, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We study donor loyalty in the context of church membership in Germany. Church members have to make substantial payments to their church but can opt out at any time. In a large-scale field experiment, we examine how private recognition for past payments affects church members’ loyalty. We find that recognizing past payments in a letter significantly reduces opt-outs. This effect is driven by members in the bottom quartile of baseline payments to the church. Consistent with optimization frictions prior to the experiment, we observe a spike in opt-outs immediately after treatment for particularly costly memberships.

Keywords: private recognition; donor loyalty; charitable giving; field experiment; recurring donors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-ore
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Water the flowers you want to grow? Evidence on private recognition and donor loyalty (2021)
Working Paper: Water the Flowers You Want to Grow? Evidence on Private Recognition and Donor Loyalty (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8424

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