How to Design the Ask? Funding Units vs. Giving Money

Raphael Epperson (), Johannes Diederich () and Timo Goeschl ()
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Raphael Epperson: Department of Public Finance, University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Johannes Diederich: Department of Economics, University of Kassel, 34109 Kassel, Germany
Timo Goeschl: Alfred Weber Institute for Economics, Heidelberg University, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany

Management Science, 2025, vol. 71, issue 4, 2830-2846

Abstract: Unit donations are an alternative fundraising scheme in which potential donors choose how many units of a charitable good to fund rather than just giving money. Based on evidence from an online experiment with 8,673 participants, we demonstrate that well-designed unit donation schemes can significantly boost giving above and beyond the standard money donation scheme. A decomposition of the underlying mechanisms shows patterns consistent with the conjecture that unit donations increase impact salience and leverage donors’ cognitive biases by changing the metric of the donation space. Managers need to weigh the potential fundraising benefits of a unit scheme against some important challenges, such as expert handling of the choice of unit sizes.

Keywords: charitable giving; unit donation; framing; aid effectiveness; restricted choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:71:y:2025:i:4:p:2830-2846

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