[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cwl/cwldpp/2183r.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Greedy or Grateful? Asking for More when Thanking Donors

Author

Listed:
Abstract
Charities routinely send "thank you letters" and small gifts to express gratitude to donors but seek to defray these costs by making additional asks for donations and/or engagement. But the "ask for more" can backfire if potential donors perceive persuasive intent in the expression of gratitude, inducing reactance. We hypothesize that such reactance and its impact on giving will vary by donor loyalty. Loyal donors are more likely to experience reactance to additional asks, muting the feeling of reciprocity aroused by the expression of gratitude to suppress giving. In contrast, non-loyal donors are less likely to experience reactance, and therefore more likely to channel the feeling of reciprocity toward giving. We test our hypothesis using a large-scale natural field experiment involving nearly 180,000 past donors to a leading charity in India. We find evidence in support of our hypothesis. We therefore recommend that additional asks only be made to nonloyal donors. Such differentially targeted ask messages based on past donation behavior, using data readily available to charities, can increase overall donation amounts by 12.8-17.5%. Our findings highlight that purely cross-sectional experiments that do not account for past donor/customer history may offer incomplete insight and lead to erroneous managerial implications.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2019. "Greedy or Grateful? Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183R, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Mar 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:2183r
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d21/d2183-r.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Netzer & James M. Lattin & V. Srinivasan, 2008. "A Hidden Markov Model of Customer Relationship Dynamics," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 185-204, 03-04.
    2. Naomi E. Feldman, 2010. "Time Is Money: Choosing between Charitable Activities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 103-130, February.
    3. Dean Karlan & John A. List, 2007. "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1774-1793, December.
    4. Newman, George E. & Jeremy Shen, Y., 2012. "The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 973-983.
    5. Friestad, Marian & Wright, Peter, 1994. "The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How People Cope with Persuasion Attempts," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 21(1), pages 1-31, June.
    6. Claudia Townsend & Darren DahlEditor & Page MoreauAssociate Editor, 2017. "The Price of Beauty: Differential Effects of Design Elements with and without Cost Implications in Nonprofit Donor Solicitations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 794-815.
    7. Catherine C. Eckel & David H. Herberich & Jonathan Meer, 2016. "It's Not the Thought that Counts: A Field Experiment on Gift Exchange and Giving at a Public University," NBER Working Papers 22867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Armin Falk, 2007. "Gift Exchange in the Field," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(5), pages 1501-1511, September.
    9. Wendy Liu & Jennifer Aaker, 2008. "The Happiness of Giving: The Time-Ask Effect," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 543-557, May.
    10. Andrea C. Morales, 2005. "Giving Firms an "E" for Effort: Consumer Responses to High-Effort Firms," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 31(4), pages 806-812, March.
    11. Liu, Wendy & Aaker, Jennifer L., 2008. "The Happiness of Giving: The Time-Ask Effect," Research Papers 1998, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    12. Rajagopal, 2014. "The Human Factors," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Architecting Enterprise, chapter 9, pages 225-249, Palgrave Macmillan.
    13. K. Sudhir & Subroto Roy & Mathew Cherian, 2016. "Do Sympathy Biases Induce Charitable Giving? The Effects of Advertising Content," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(6), pages 849-869, November.
    14. Karen Page Winterich & Vikas Mittal & William T. Ross Jr., 2009. "Donation Behavior toward In-Groups and Out-Groups: The Role of Gender and Moral Identity," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(2), pages 199-214.
    15. K. Sudhir & Subroto Roy & Mathew Cherian, 2014. "Do Sympathy Biases Induce Charitable Giving" The Effects of Advertising Content," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1940, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Jan 2016.
    16. Roland T. Rust & Peter C. Verhoef, 2005. "Optimizing the Marketing Interventions Mix in Intermediate-Term CRM," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 477-489, December.
    17. Jean-Pierre Dubé & Xueming Luo & Zheng Fang, 2017. "Self-Signaling and Prosocial Behavior: A Cause Marketing Experiment," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(2), pages 140-156, March.
    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. K. Sudhir & Hortense Fong & Subroto Roy, 2014. "Greedy or Grateful" Asking for More when Thanking Donors," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2183, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    2. Ike Silver & Deborah A. Small, 2024. "Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is: A Field Experiment Encouraging Donors to Share About Charity," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(2), pages 392-406, March.
    3. Ernan Haruvy & Peter Popkowski Leszczyc & Greg Allenby & Russell Belk & Catherine Eckel & Robert Fisher & Sherry Xin Li & John A. List & Yu Ma & Yu Wang, 2020. "Fundraising design: key issues, unifying framework, and open puzzles," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 371-380, December.
    4. Moon, Sangkil & Azizi, Kathryn, 2013. "Finding Donors by Relationship Fundraising," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 112-129.
    5. He Tingting, 2021. "Comparing Money and Time Donation: What Do Experiments Tell Us?," Marketing of Scientific and Research Organizations, Sciendo, vol. 41(3), pages 65-94, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Newman, George E. & Jeremy Shen, Y., 2012. "The counterintuitive effects of thank-you gifts on charitable giving," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 973-983.
    8. Gallier, Carlo & Goeschl, Timo & Kesternich, Martin & Lohse, Johannes & Reif, Christiane & Römer, Daniel, 2023. "Inter-charity competition under spatial differentiation: Sorting, crowding, and spillovers," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 457-468.
    9. Diogo Hildebrand & Yoshiko DeMotta & Sankar Sen & Ana Valenzuela & Laura PeracchioEditor & Gita JoharEditor & Jaideep SenguptaAssociate Editor, 2017. "Consumer Responses to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Contribution Type," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 44(4), pages 738-758.
    10. Shijie Lu & Dai Yao & Xingyu Chen & Rajdeep Grewal, 2021. "Do Larger Audiences Generate Greater Revenues Under Pay What You Want? Evidence from a Live Streaming Platform," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(5), pages 964-984, September.
    11. Omar Merlo & Andreas B. Eisingerich & Wayne D. Hoyer, 2024. "Immunizing customers against negative brand-related information," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 140-163, January.
    12. Wang, Xia & Tong, Luqiong, 2015. "Hide the light or let it shine? Examining the factors influencing the effect of publicizing donations on donors’ happiness," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 418-424.
    13. van Diepen, Merel & Donkers, Bas & Franses, Philip Hans, 2009. "Does irritation induced by charitable direct mailings reduce donations?," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 180-188.
    14. Saccardo, Silvia & Li, Charis X. & Samek, Anya & Gneezy, Ayelet, 2021. "Nudging generosity in consumer elective pricing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 91-104.
    15. Cosimato, Silvia & Faggini, Marisa & Prete, Marzia del, 2021. "The co-creation of value for pursuing a sustainable happiness: The analysis of an Italian prison community," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    16. Meer, Jonathan, 2017. "Does fundraising create new giving?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 82-93.
    17. Alexander L. Brown & Jonathan Meer & J. Forrest Williams, 2019. "Why Do People Volunteer? An Experimental Analysis of Preferences for Time Donations," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1455-1468, April.
    18. Ye, Nan & Teng, Lefa & Yu, Ying & Wang, Yingyuan, 2015. "“What's in it for me?”: The effect of donation outcomes on donation behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 480-486.
    19. Yun Young Hur & Fujie Jin & Xitong Li & Yuan Cheng & Yu Jeffrey Hu, 2023. "Does Social Influence Change with Other Information Sources? A Large-Scale Randomized Experiment in Medical Crowdfunding," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(4), pages 1476-1492, December.
    20. Diogo Hildebrand & Yoshiko Demotta & Sankar Sen & Ana Valenzuela, 2017. "Consumer Responses to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Contribution Type," Post-Print hal-01576949, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gratitude; Field experiments; Reactance; Fundraising; Donor relationship management; Nonprofits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • M31 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Marketing
    • M37 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Marketing and Advertising - - - Advertising
    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments

    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:cwl:cwldpp:2183r. 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: Brittany Ladd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cowleus.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.