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

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Epperson, Raphael; Diederich, Johannes; Goeschl, Timo
• 署名单位: University of Innsbruck; Universitat Kassel; Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.00157
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Charitable giving; unit donation; framing; Aid effectiveness; restricted choice

摘要

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.