Matching and Challenge Gifts to Charity: Evidence from Laboratory and Natural Field Experiments

Daniel Rondeau and John List ()

No 3278, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

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: fundraising; threshold public goods; charitable giving; field experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
Date: 2008-01
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://ftp.iza.org/dp3278.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Matching and Challenge Gifts to Charity:Evidence from Laboratory and Natural Field Experiments (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3278

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Address: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Mark Fallak ().