Now or never! The effect of deadlines on charitable giving: Evidence from a natural field experiment

Mette Trier Damgaard () and Christina Gravert
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Mette Trier Damgaard: Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus University, Denmark, Postal: 8210 Aarhus V, Denmark

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University

Abstract: This study designs two field experiments to estimate the effect of binding deadlines and reminders on charitable giving. We sent out 62,000 e-mails and text messages to prior donors of a large Danish charity while varying the length of the deadline and whether they received a reminder. We find that a reminder increases both the likelihood of making a donation and the amount donated. We find no effect of the deadlines on the propensity to give. Instead we observe a “now-or-never” effect; either donations are made immediately or not at all. In line with the “avoiding-the-ask” theory, both shorter deadlines and the reminder increase the number of requests to be taken off the mailing list.

Keywords: Field experiment; charitable contributions; time preferences; avoiding-the-ask (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D03 D64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16
Date: 2014-01-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-exp
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aah:aarhec:2014-03

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