Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-7g5wt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-17T07:37:32.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Matching and challenge gifts to charity: evidence from laboratory and natural field experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Daniel Rondeau  and
John A. List
Daniel Rondeau*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada
John A. List*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, The University of Chicago and NBER, 1126 East 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
*
e-mail: [email protected]
e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study designs a natural field experiment linked to a controlled laboratory experiment to examine the effectiveness of matching gifts and challenge gifts, two popular strategies used to secure a portion of the $200 billion annually given to charities. We find evidence that challenge gifts positively influence contributions in the field, but matching gifts do not. Methodologically, we find important similarities and dissimilarities between behavior in the lab and the field. Overall, our results have clear implications for fundraisers and provide avenues for future empirical and theoretical work on charitable giving.

Keywords

Charitable givingThreshold public goodsFundraisingField experiments

JEL classification

H41: Public Goods C93: Field Experiments
Type
Research Article
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 11 , Issue 3: Field experiments in economics with applications to the economics of charity , September 2008 , pp. 253 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Economic Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We are grateful to the British Columbia Chapter of the Sierra Club of Canada for allowing us to design their fundraising campaign. Part of the writing of this paper was done while Daniel Rondeau was an OECD fellow and Visiting Scholar at the Laboratoire Méditerranéen d’Économie Théorique et Appliquée (LAMETA), INRA-Montpellier, France. Their financial support and hospitality is gratefully acknowledged. We also thank seminar participants at Wharton, Columbia, and the 2004 EAERE and 2005 ASSA meetings. Richard Carson, Rachel Croson, Glenn Harrison, Liesl Koch, David Reiley, Lise Vesterlund, Stefano della Vigna, Timothy Cason and three anonymous referees provided remarks that improved the manuscript.

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10683-007-9190-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

References

Andreoni, J. (1998). Toward a theory of charitable fund-raising. Journal of Political Economy, 106(6), 1186–1213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andreoni, J. (2006). Leadership giving in charitable fundraising. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 8(1), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Auten, G., Sieg, H., & Clotfelter, C. T. (2002). Charitable giving, income and taxes: an analysis of panel data. American Economic Review, 92, 371–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagnoli, M., & Lipman, B. L. (1989). Provision of public goods: Fully implementing the core through private contributions. Review of Economic Studies, 56, 583–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadsby, C. B., & Maynes, E. (1999). Voluntary provision of threshold public goods with continuous contributions: Experimental evidence. Journal of Public Economics, 71, 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dove, K. E. (2000). Conducting a successful capital campaign (2nd edn.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass (510 pp).Google Scholar
Eckel, C. C., & Grossman, P. J. (2003). Rebate versus matching: does how we subsidize charitable contributions matter? Journal of Public Economics, 87, 681–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falk, A. (2007). Gift-exchange in the field. Econometrica, 75(5), 1501–1511.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frey, B. S., & Meier, S. (2004). Social comparisons and pro-social behavior: Testing conditional cooperation in a field experiment. American Economic Review, 94(5), 1717–1722.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harrison, G., & List, J. A. (2004). Field experiments. Journal of Economic Literature, 42(4), 1013–1059.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoel, P. G. (1971). Introduction to mathematical statistics (4th edn.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Karlan, D., & List, J. A. (2007). Does price matter in charitable giving? Evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment. American Economic Review, 97(5), 1774–1793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landry, C., Lange, A., List, J. A., Price, M. K., & Rupp, N. (2006). Toward an understanding of the economics of charity: Evidence from a field experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), 747–782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawson, C. E. (2001). Capital fund appeals. In Greenfield, J. M. (Ed.), The nonprofit handbook: Fund raising (3rd edn.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Levitt, S. D., & List, J. A. (2007). What do laboratory experiments measuring social preferences tell us about the real world. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(2), 153–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, J. A. (2006). Field experiments: A bridge between lab and naturally occurring data, Advances in Economic Analysis and Policy, 6(2). Article 2.Google Scholar
List, J. A., & Lucking-Reiley, D. (2002). The effects of seed money and refunds on charitable giving: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign. Journal of Political Economy, 110, 215233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, J. A., & Rondeau, D. (2003). The impact of challenge gifts on charitable giving: An experimental investigation. Economics Letters, 79, 153–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meier, S. (2007). Do subsidies increase charitable giving in the long-run? Matching donations in a field experiment (Working Paper). Boston Federal Reserve Board.Google Scholar
Randolph, W. C. (1995). Dynamic income, progressive taxes, and the timing of charitable contributions. Journal of Political Economy, 103, 709–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rondeau, D., Schulze, W.D., & Poe, G. L. (1999). Voluntary revelation of the demand for public goods using a provision point mechanism. Journal of Public Economics, 72, 455–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rondeau, D., Poe, G. L., & Schulze, W. D. (2005). VCM or PPM? A comparison of the performance of two voluntary public goods mechanisms. Journal of Public Economics, 81, 1581–1592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shang, J., & Croson, R. (2005). Field experiments in charitable contribution: The impact of social influence on the voluntary provision of public goods (Working Paper). Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Vesterlund, L. (2003). The informational value of sequential fundraising. Journal of Public Economics, 87, 627–657.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Rondeau and List supplementary material

Rondeau and List supplementary material
Download Rondeau and List supplementary material(File)
File 232.6 KB