Charitable donations decision-making researchHow can we increase the good people choose to do with their donations?
Interested in working on this research direction? Apply for our coaching
This profile is tailored towards students studying economics, media and communications and psychology, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
The amount of money donated to charitable causes in the US alone was over $484 billion in 2021, with the largest proportion of that amount donated by individuals. There is a reason to believe that differences in the effectiveness of various charitable interventions are vast. However, donors rarely decide where to donate based on how effective their donations will be, and research suggests most donors significantly underestimate the differences in how effective different charities are.
Most research done in this area is focused on increasing the amount donated, however it seems plausible that more research on increasing the effectiveness of donations would create a greater positive impact. Further research to identify interventions that create desirable behavioural change would likely be more valuable than descriptive research (i.e. how donors behave).
Explore existing research
- Andreoni, James (1990) Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving, The Economic Journal
- Bekkers, René & Pamala Wiepking (2011) A Literature Review of Empirical Studies of Philanthropy: Eight Mechanisms that Drive Charitable Giving, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
- Bergh, Robin & David Reinstein (2019) Empathic and Numerate Giving: The Joint Effects of Victim Images and Charity Evaluations
- Berman, Jonathan Z., et al. (2018) Impediments to Effective Altruism: The Role of Subjective Preferences in Charitable Giving, Psychological Science
- Caviola, Lucius, Stefan Schubert, & Joshua D. Green (2021) The Psychology of (In)Effective Altruism, Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Costa-Gomes, Miguel & Philipp Schoenegger (2022) Sure-Thing vs. Probabilistic Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Individual Differences in Risky and Ambiguous Charitable Decision-Making, PLoS ONE
- Gneezy, Uri, et al. (2014) Avoiding Overhead Aversion in Charity, Science
- Grodeck, Ben & Philipp Schoenegger (2022) Demanding the Morally Demanding: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Moral Arguments and Moral Demandingness on Charitable Giving
- Karlan, Dean & Daniel H. Wood (2014) The Effect of Effectiveness: Donor Response to Aid Effectiveness in a Direct Mail Fundraising Experiment
- Kessler, Judd B., Katherine L. Milkman, & C. Yiwei Zhang (2019) Getting the Rich and Powerful to Give, Management Science
- Nemirow, Jason, et al. (2020) The Many Obstacles to Effective Giving, Judgment and Decision Making
- Schroeder, Juliana, et al. (2017) Endorsing Help for Others That You Oppose for Yourself: Mind Perception Alters the Perceived Effectiveness of Paternalism, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
- Small, Deborah E. & George Loewenstein (2003) Helping a Victim or Helping the Victim: Altruism and Identifiability, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
- Toure-Tillery, Maferima & Ayelet Fishbach, Too Far to Help: The Effect of Perceived Distance on the Expected Impact and Likelihood of Charitable Action, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Wiepking, Pamala & René Bekkers (2012) Who Gives? A Literature Review of Predictors of Charitable Giving. Part Two: Gender, Family Composition and Income, Voluntary Sector Review
Find a thesis topic
If you’re interested in working on this research direction, below are some ideas on what would be valuable to explore further. If you want help refining your research ideas, apply for our coaching!
David Reinstein is an economist at the research organisation Rethink Priorities who has the following open research projects, and offers opportunities to engage, particularly for research students with strong aptitudes in statistics, data science, and writing:
- Increasing effective giving (& action): The puzzle, what we (need to) know offers a more targeted overview and synthesis as an open research project.
- Impact of impact treatments on giving: field experiments and synthesis
- / open analysis of trials – includes a range of unanalysed or underanalysed data that merits further study.
This post from the charity The Life You Can Save suggests the research questions below:
- How can we design intermediaries and resources that promote better giving decisions AND that donors will want to use?
- How do personal differences impact the way people think about giving?
Psychology and cognitive sciences
This post from the charity The Life You Can Save suggests the research questions below:
- How can we design intermediaries and resources that promote better giving decisions AND that donors will want to use?
- Which beliefs lead to good giving behaviour, and which beliefs obstruct it?
- How do personal differences impact the way people think about giving?
Relatedly, it could be useful to explore who is more likely to be motivated to give effectively.
You could also explore what interventions decrease biases and false beliefs that might lead people to ineffective giving (e.g. scope neglect; the belief charity effectiveness can’t be measured). See more discussion and data in this paper.
The paper What Works to Increase Charitable Donations? A Meta-Review with Meta-Meta-Analysis also has suggestions for further research.
Further resources
Find supervision, mentorship and collaboration
Apply for our coaching and we can connect you with researchers already working in this space, who can help you refine your research ideas. You can also apply to join our community if you’re interested in meeting other students working on this research direction.
Apply for our database of potential supervisors if you’re looking for formal supervision and take a look at our advice on finding a great supervisor for further ideas.
You could also join this community of behavioural scientists to connect with other researchers interested in this area and explore this directory of researchers to find other researchers working on this research direction. Luke Freeman, Executive Director at Giving What We Can, may also be able to support students tackling these questions.
Our funding database can help you find potential sources of funding if you’re a PhD student interested in this research direction.
- Sign up for our newsletter to hear about opportunities such as funding, internships and research roles.
- The Effective Altruism Behavioral Science Newsletter shares papers, research opportunities, events and calls for collaborators.
If you’re interested in understanding why people make altruistic decisions, you could also look at our profiles on attitudes on existential risk and longtermism, behavioural and attitudinal change in animal product consumption and moral circle expansion.
Contributors
This profile was last updated 31/12/2022. Thanks to Samantha Kassirer, Philipp Schoenegger, David Reinstein and Izzy Gainsburg for helpful feedback. All errors remain our own. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
Where next?
Keep exploring our other services and content
Our recommended research directions
Explore areas where we think further research could have a particularly positive impact on the world.
Apply for coaching
Want to work on one of our recommended research directions? Apply for coaching to receive personalised guidance.
Research on altruistic decision-making
How can we encourage effective action to help others? Read our introduction on research on altruistic decision-making.
Explore all our services
Learn about all the services we offer to help you have more impact with your research career.