Do Thank-You Calls Increase Charitable Giving? Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence
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Abstract
Calling to thank donors is considered a key fundraising strategy in the charitable giving industry. Yet the effectiveness of thank-you calls remains untested. We conduct field experiments with public television stations and a national nonprofit in which 500,000 new donors were randomized to receive a thank-you call or not. Fundraising professionals predicted that the calls—which followed standard practices in the industry—would increase donor retention by 80 percent. In stark contrast, we found a precisely estimated null effect of calls on donor retention.Citation
Samek, Anya, and Chuck Longfield. 2023. "Do Thank-You Calls Increase Charitable Giving? Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 15 (2): 103-24. DOI: 10.1257/app.20210068Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C83 Survey Methods; Sampling Methods
- C93 Field Experiments
- D64 Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
- D91 Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
- L31 Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
- L82 Entertainment; Media
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