Promises undone: How committed pledges impact donations to charity

TY - UNPB

T1 - Promises undone

T2 - How committed pledges impact donations to charity

AU - Fosgaard, Toke Reinholt

AU - Soetevent, Adriaan R.

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - The declining use of cash in society urges charities to experiment with digital payment instruments in their o-line fund raising activities. Cash and card payments dier in that the latter do not require individuals to donate at the time of the ask, disconnecting the decision to give from the act of giving. Evidence shows that people who say they will give mostly do not follow through. Our theory shows that having people to formally state the intended amount may alleviate this problem.We report on a field experiment the results of which show that donors who have pledged an amount are indeed more likely to follow through. The firmer the pledge, the more closely the amount donated matches the amount that was pledged. 45% of all participants however refuses to pledge. This proves that donors value exibility over commitment in intertemporal charitable giving.

AB - The declining use of cash in society urges charities to experiment with digital payment instruments in their o-line fund raising activities. Cash and card payments dier in that the latter do not require individuals to donate at the time of the ask, disconnecting the decision to give from the act of giving. Evidence shows that people who say they will give mostly do not follow through. Our theory shows that having people to formally state the intended amount may alleviate this problem.We report on a field experiment the results of which show that donors who have pledged an amount are indeed more likely to follow through. The firmer the pledge, the more closely the amount donated matches the amount that was pledged. 45% of all participants however refuses to pledge. This proves that donors value exibility over commitment in intertemporal charitable giving.

M3 - Working paper

T3 - IFRO Working Paper

BT - Promises undone

PB - Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen

ER -