Publications

Article

Contingent Match Incentives Increase Donations

By: Lalin Anik, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

We propose a new means by which non-profits can induce donors to give today and commit to giving in the future: contingent match incentives, in which matching is made contingent on the percentage of others who give (e.g., "if X% of others give, we will match all... View Details

Keywords: Matching Donations; Social Proof; Prosocial Behavior; Charitable Giving; Plausibility; Motivation and Incentives; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

August 2012
Article

Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to Donate

By: Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth

Organ donations from deceased donors (cadavers) provide the majority of transplanted organs in the United States, and one deceased donor can save numerous lives by providing multiple organs. Nevertheless, most Americans are not registered organ donors despite the... View Details

Keywords: Organ Donation; Health; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Decision Making; Resource Allocation; Mathematical Methods; United States

Article

Excusing Selfishness in Charitable Giving: The Role of Risk

By: Christine L. Exley

Decisions involving charitable giving often occur under the shadow of risk. A common finding is that potential donors give less when there is greater risk that their donation will have less impact. While this behavior could be fully rationalized by standard economic... View Details

Keywords: Charitable Giving; Prosocial Behavior; Altruism; Risk Preferences; Risk and Uncertainty; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior

March 2023
Article

Giving-by-proxy Triggers Subsequent Charitable Behavior

By: Samantha Kassirer, Jillian J. Jordan and Maryam Kouchaki

How can we foster habits of charitable giving? Here, we investigate the potential power of giving-by-proxy experiences, drawing inspiration from a growing trend in marketing and corporate social responsibility contexts in which organizations make charitable... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior

February 2018
Article

The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask

By: Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie

Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use uncertainty to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper,... View Details

Keywords: Charitable Giving; Prosocial Behavior; Self-serving Biases; Excuses; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Behavior

30 May 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Non-Standard Matches and Charitable Giving

Keywords: by Michael Sanders, Sarah Smith & Michael I. Norton

July 2011
Article

Kidney Paired Donation

By: C. Bradley Wallis, Kannan P. Samy, Alvin E. Roth and Michael A. Rees

Kidney paired donation (KPD) was first suggested in 1986, but it was not until 2000 when the first paired donation transplant was performed in the U.S. In the past decade, KPD has become the fastest growing source of transplantable kidneys, overcoming the barrier faced... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Care and Treatment; Growth and Development Strategy; Success; Problems and Challenges; Programs; System; United States

13 Dec 2011
Working Paper Summaries

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

Keywords: Service

June 2014
Article

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with, while the second is the dependence of... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Attitudes; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

2011
Working Paper

Charitable Giving When Altruism and Similarity Are Linked

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

This paper presents a model in which anonymous charitable donations are rationalized by two human tendencies drawn from the psychology literature. The first is people's disproportionate disposition to help those they agree with while the second is the dependence of... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Mathematical Methods; Attitudes; Interests; Perception; Wealth and Poverty

Article

Maimonides' Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability

By: Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli, Kyle A. Thomas and Steven Pinker

Why do people esteem anonymous charitable giving? We connect normative theories of charitability (captured in Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity) with evolutionary theories of partner choice to test predictions on how attributions of charitability are affected by states of... View Details

Keywords: Charity; Reciprocity; Partner Choice; Common Knowledge; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Knowledge; Perception

27 Dec 2014
News

Excusing selfishness in charitable giving: The role of risk

19 Oct 2017
Research & Ideas

How Charitable Organizations Can Thwart Excuses for Not Giving

describes in a new working paper, The Better Is the Enemy of the Good. In fact, Exley argues that based on her research, people look for any excuse to avoid giving a donation and then rationalize their skinflint behavior to avoid feeling... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

10 Sep 2009
Working Paper Summaries

Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

Keywords: by Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Michael I. Norton & Elizabeth W. Dunn

2010
Chapter

New Sources in Living Kidney Donation

By: Ruthanne L. Hanto, Alvin E. Roth, M. Utku Ünver and Francis L. Delmonico

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Health Industry

2021
Article

Fundraising for Stigmatized Groups: A Text Message Donation Experiment

By: Katerina Linos, Laura Jakli and Melissa Carlson

As government welfare programming contracts and NGOs increasingly assume core aid functions, they must address a long-standing challenge—that people in need often belong to stigmatized groups. To study other-regarding behavior, we fielded an experiment through a... View Details

Keywords: Demographics; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Communication Strategy; Civil Society or Community; Non-Governmental Organizations; Welfare; Greece

Purchase

06 Sep 2022
Research & Ideas

Curbing an Unlikely Culprit of Rising Drug Prices: Pharmaceutical Donations

of Health and Human Services, manufacturers may donate to charitable organizations that cover these costs, and can earmark their donations for specific disease categories. The... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand; Insurance; Health; Pharmaceutical

07 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Giving Back: Consumers Care More About How Companies Donate Than How Much

the absolute amount going to the charitable cause in the first case is much larger and even when they acknowledge that the larger donation will be more impactful, people consider the brand as less generous.”... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

2025
Working Paper

How Do Nonprofits Use Cash Windfalls? Evidence from $5B in Unrestricted Donations

By: Jennifer Walsh

How do nonprofits use unrestricted gifts? Donations to 501(c)(3)'s are increasingly given unrestricted due to concerns that restrictions on use unduly constrain nonprofits. I study the effect of such funding on recipients using a $5B sample of MacKenzie Scott's gifts... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit Organizations; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Budgets and Budgeting; Compensation and Benefits

SSRN