TY - JOUR
T1 - How can Bill and Melinda Gates increase other people's donations to fund public goods?
AU - Karlan, Dean
AU - List, John A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank TechnoServe for collaborating on this field experiment, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for providing the matching grant to TechnoServe, Conor Dowling and Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science for providing access to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (and its funder, the National Science Foundation), NORC for collaboration on the AmeriSpeak survey, and Omar Parbhoo, ideas42 and Charity Navigator for providing data to the curated-list test reported herein. All opinions reported here are those of the authors and not of TechnoServe or of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Karlan thanks the Alfred B. Sloan Foundation and the National Science Foundation for support; List thanks the Templeton Foundation for support. We thank Nathan Barker, Shannon Coyne, Ellen Degnan, Selvan Kumar, Peter Lugthart, Rachel Strohm, James Tan, Natalia Torres and Jonathan Vayness for research assistance.
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - We conducted a fundraising experiment with an international development nonprofit organization in which a matching grant offered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation raised more funds than one from an anonymous donor. The effect is strongest for solicitees who previously gave to other BMGF-supported, poverty charities. With supporting evidence from two other fundraising experiments as well as a survey experiment, we argue this is consistent with a quality signal mechanism. Alternative mechanisms are discussed, and not ruled out. The results help inform theories about charitable giving decision-making, and provide guidance to organizations and large donors on how to overcome information asymmetries hindering fundraising.
AB - We conducted a fundraising experiment with an international development nonprofit organization in which a matching grant offered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation raised more funds than one from an anonymous donor. The effect is strongest for solicitees who previously gave to other BMGF-supported, poverty charities. With supporting evidence from two other fundraising experiments as well as a survey experiment, we argue this is consistent with a quality signal mechanism. Alternative mechanisms are discussed, and not ruled out. The results help inform theories about charitable giving decision-making, and provide guidance to organizations and large donors on how to overcome information asymmetries hindering fundraising.
KW - Asymmetric information
KW - Charitable fundraising
KW - Matching grant
KW - Public goods
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104296
DO - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104296
M3 - Article
C2 - 33052151
AN - SCOPUS:85092361391
VL - 191
JO - Journal of Public Economics
JF - Journal of Public Economics
SN - 0047-2727
M1 - 104296
ER -