TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lange,Andreas
AU  - Stocking,Andrew
TI  - Charitable Memberships, Volunteering, and Discounts: Evidence from a Large-Scale Online Field Experiment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14941
PY  - 2009
Y2  - May 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14941
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14941.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Andreas Lange
University of Hamburg
Department of Economics
Von Melle Park 5
20146 Hamburg
Germany
Tel: +49-40-42838-4035
Fax: +49-40-42838-3243
E-Mail: andreas.lange@wiso.uni-hamburg.de

Andrew J. Stocking
Congressional Budget Office
Ford House Office Building, #480C
Washington, DC  20515
Tel: (202) 226-2815
E-Mail: astocking@cbo.gov
AB  - Despite the increasing use by charities, significant uncertainty exists about optimal online fundraising mechanisms, especially when large donor pools show substantial heterogeneities. We use an online natural field experiment with over 700,000 subjects to test theory on price discounts and show large differences in donation behavior between donors who have previously given money and/or volunteered. For example, framing the charity's membership price as a discount increases response rates and decreases conditional contributions from former volunteers, but not from past money donors. Our study thereby demonstrates the importance of conditioning fundraising strategies on the specifics of past donation dimensions.
ER  -