Publications
Publications
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(121)
- Faculty Publications (39)
Page 1 of
39
Results
→
- March 2022
- Article
When Less Is More: Consumers Prefer Brands that Donate More in Relative versus Absolute Terms
By: Elizabeth A. Keenan, Anne V. Wilson and Leslie K. John
When trying to make a good impression on consumers through charitable giving, is it better for brands to maximize the overall dollars they donate or how much they give in relative terms; for example, the proportion of profits? Across five studies we show that consumers...
View Details
- April 2021
- Case
The Incentive for Legacy: Tsinghua University Education Foundation
By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao and Spencer C.N. Hagist
Vivian Yuan seeks to bolster the Tsinghua University Education Foundation's fundraising efforts and investment goals in a new era of Chinese higher education. Competing with elite members of China's C9 League of top universities, she must develop a set of incentives...
View Details
- March 2021
- Article
Opting-in to Prosocial Incentives
By: Daniel Schwartz, Elizabeth A. Keenan, Alex Imas and Ayelet Gneezy
The design of effective incentive schemes that are both successful in motivating employees and keeping down costs is of critical importance. Research has demonstrated that prosocial incentives, where individuals’ effort benefits a charitable organization, can sometimes...
View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Income Inequality Affects Donations Only for High-Income People Who Feel Financially Insecure and Distrust Others
By: Lucia Macchia and Ashley V. Whillans
There is a growing debate about whether high-income individuals are more or less generous when income inequality is high. We advance this ongoing conversation by analysing a large and comprehensive data set with approximately one million respondents from 140 countries....
View Details
- Article
Maimonides' Ladder: States of Mutual Knowledge and the Perception of Charitability
By: Julian De Freitas, Peter DiScioli, Kyle A. Thomas and Steven Pinker
Why do people esteem anonymous charitable giving? We connect normative theories of charitability
(captured in Maimonides’ Ladder of Charity) with evolutionary theories of partner choice to test predictions on how attributions of charitability are affected by states of...
View Details
- December 2018
- Article
Agentic Appeals Increase Charitable Giving in an Affluent Sample of Donors
By: Ashley V. Whillans and Elizabeth W. Dunn
Recent research suggests that affluent individuals adopt agentic self-concepts, striving to stand out from others and to master the environment on their own. The present study provides a road test of this idea, showing that this theorizing can be utilized to increase...
View Details
- March 2018
- Case
GoFundMe: The Giving Layer of the Internet
By: Scott Duke Kominers and Allison M. Ciechanover
By 2017, GoFundMe is the world’s largest social fundraising platform. Gross donation volume is growing rapidly, yet the number of monthly campaign starts is relatively flat. The CEO contemplates a variety of growth initiatives.
View Details
- February 2018
- Article
The Impact of a Surprise Donation Ask
By: Christine L. Exley and Ragan Petrie
Individuals frequently exploit "flexibility" built into decision environments to give less. They use uncertainty to justify options benefiting themselves over others, they avoid information that may encourage them to give, and they avoid the ask itself. In this paper,...
View Details
- December 2017
- Case
Charity or Bribery?
By: Eugene Soltes and Brian Tilley
Filip Kowalski, a senior manager at the pharmaceutical company Healthgen, leads sales for the firm’s Polish division. While pitching Healthgen’s products, he develops a relationship with a director of a regional health fund who also runs a private foundation. After a...
View Details
- Article
Both Selfishness and Selflessness Start with the Self: How Wealth Shapes Responses to Charitable Appeals
By: A.V. Whillans, E.M. Caruso and E.W. Dunn
Wealth is associated with differences in people's self-concepts. We propose that these self-concepts should define the types of appeals that are most effective at motivating generosity. Across three field studies, we randomly assigned participants to view an appeal for...
View Details
- Article
Social Recycling Transforms Unwanted Goods into Happiness
By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Rebecca Walker Reczek and Michael I. Norton
Consumers are often surrounded by resources that once offered meaning or happiness but that have lost this subjective value over time—even as they retain their objective utility. We explore the potential for social recycling—disposing of used goods by allowing other...
View Details
- Article
Selfishly Benevolent or Benevolently Selfish? When Self-interest Undermines versus Promotes Prosocial Behavior
By: Julian Zlatev and Dale T. Miller
Existing research shows that appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. We propose that this inconsistency is in part due to the framings of these appeals. Different framings generate different salient reference points,...
View Details
- 2016
- White Paper
A Brief Introduction to the Science of Fundraising
By: A.V. Whillans
How can the science of philanthropy inform day-to-day fundraising? This brief report explores the usefulness of looking to social science research to enhance fundraising strategies. Drawing on empirical studies from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and...
View Details
- Article
Excusing Selfishness in Charitable Giving: The Role of Risk
Decisions involving charitable giving often occur under the shadow of risk. A common finding is that potential donors give less when there is greater risk that their donation will have less impact. While this behavior could be fully rationalized by standard economic...
View Details
- November 2015
- Article
When Doing Good Is Bad in Gift-giving: Mis-predicting Appreciation of Socially Responsible Gifts
By: Lisa A. Cavanaugh, F. Gino and Gavan J. Fitzsimons
Gifts that support a worthy cause (i.e., "gifts that give twice"), such as a charitable donation in the recipient's name, have become increasingly popular. Recipients generally enjoy these gifts, which not only benefit others in need but also make recipients feel good...
View Details
- Article
Contingent Match Incentives Increase Donations
By: Lalin Anik, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely
We propose a new means by which non-profits can induce donors to give today and commit to giving in the future: contingent match incentives, in which matching is made contingent on the percentage of others who give (e.g., "if X% of others give, we will match all...
View Details
- Article
Avoiding Overhead Aversion in Charity
By: Uri Gneezy, Elizabeth A. Keenan and Ayelet Gneezy
Donors tend to avoid charities that dedicate a high percentage of expenses to administrative and fundraising costs, limiting the ability of nonprofits to be effective. We propose a solution to this problem: Use donations from major philanthropists to cover overhead...
View Details
- 2014
- Working Paper
Don't Take 'No' for an Answer: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations
By: Judd B. Kessler and Alvin E. Roth
Over 10,000 people in the U.S. die each year while waiting for an organ. Attempts to increase organ transplantation have focused on changing the registration question from an opt-in frame to an active choice frame. We analyze this change in California and show it...
View Details
- June 2014 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Kathy Giusti and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation
By: Richard G. Hamermesh, Joshua D. Margolis and Matthew G. Preble
What do you do when your rising professional career is cut short by an unexpected cancer diagnosis? Kathy Giusti shifted careers, built a new organization that transformed how cancer research is done, and now faces the challenge of sustaining the organization and its...
View Details
Keywords:
Philanthropy;
Philanthropy Funding;
Entrepreneurship;
Health Care;
Management Styles;
Personalized Medicine;
Health Care Outcomes;
Cancer;
Cancer Care In The U.S.;
Personal Care;
Leadership;
Leading Change;
Social Entrepreneurship;
Philanthropy and Charitable Giving;
Health Care and Treatment;
Leadership Style;
Management Style;
Management Skills;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Business Strategy;
Health;
Health Industry;
United States;
Canada;
Spain
- Article
Prosocial Bonuses Increase Employee Satisfaction and Team Performance
By: Lalin Anik, Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Michael I. Norton and Jordi Quoidbach
In three field studies, we explore the impact of providing employees and teammates with prosocial bonuses, a novel type of bonus spent on others rather than on oneself. In Experiment 1, we show that prosocial bonuses in the form of donations to charity lead to happier...
View Details