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

TY - JOUR

T1 - Now or never! The effect of deadlines on charitable giving

T2 - Evidence from two natural field experiments

AU - Damgaard, Mette Trier

AU - Gravert, Christina

PY - 2017/2/1

Y1 - 2017/2/1

N2 - Do time constraints impact charitable giving? This paper develops a simple model to show how deadlines could affect the propensity to make a charitable donation. We then conduct two field experiments to show empirically the effect of deadlines on charitable giving. About 53,000 prior donors of a large Danish charity received e-mails and text messages with varying deadlines for giving. We find no effect of deadlines on the propensity to give. Instead we observe a “now-or-never” effect; either donations are made immediately or not at all.

AB - Do time constraints impact charitable giving? This paper develops a simple model to show how deadlines could affect the propensity to make a charitable donation. We then conduct two field experiments to show empirically the effect of deadlines on charitable giving. About 53,000 prior donors of a large Danish charity received e-mails and text messages with varying deadlines for giving. We find no effect of deadlines on the propensity to give. Instead we observe a “now-or-never” effect; either donations are made immediately or not at all.

KW - Avoiding-the-ask

KW - Charitable giving

KW - Deadline

KW - Field experiment

KW - Time preference

U2 - 10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.013

DO - 10.1016/j.socec.2016.04.013

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84964768924

SN - 2214-8043

VL - 66

SP - 78

EP - 87

JO - Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

JF - Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

ER -