EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

How does fundraising affect volunteering? Evidence from a natural field experiment

Michael Yeomans and Omar Al-Ubaydli

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2018, vol. 64, issue C, 57-72

Abstract: Can fundraising solicitations have an effect on other types of giving, like volunteering? We report results from a field experiment in which a non-profit firm asked their current volunteers to donate money, in a randomly-staggered roll-out. We observe volunteers’ entire portfolio of giving to the firm – both donations, and volunteer hours before and after the call. Overall, these results suggested there was some decline in volunteer hours among volunteers who were newer to the firm. By contrast, long-time volunteers maintained their volunteering after the call, and were also more likely to donate in the first place. Substitution was rare, as the donors themselves did not decrease their volunteer hours after donating. Our findings provide new evidence for how personal history can shape charitable giving decisions, and provide new practical guidance for fundraisers.

Keywords: Charitable giving; Volunteering; Fundraising; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487017300065
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:64:y:2018:i:c:p:57-72

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2017.11.004

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

More articles in Journal of Economic Psychology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:64:y:2018:i:c:p:57-72