Send Donations Directly to Beneficiaries

Donors want to feed hungry children.

They don’t want to pay executives.

Therefore, tell donors that you paid overhead costs with a separate donation.

In a field study with 40,000 donors, researchers tested different messages: “A private donor who believes in the importance of the project has given this campaign…”

• Seed: “...seed money in the amount of $10,000.”
• Match: “...a matching grant in the amount of $10,000”
• Overhead: “...a grant in the amount of $10,000 to cover all the overhead costs associated with raising the needed donations.”

Overhead strategy was the clear winner (Gneezy et al., 2014).

How to Apply

• Show Humans, Not Robots. People don’t want to pay executive salaries, and they also don’t want to pay robots. In one study, a charity received fewer donations when they showed a robot helping with a mudslide disaster (Chen & Huang, 2023). These donations feel like they would help the efficiency of robots, rather than the beneficiaries.

• Avoid “We” Pronouns. Donors want to help people, but “we” pronouns (e.g., we help children) rob them of this feeling. The charity is helping. Not the donor. Insert "you" pronouns (e.g., you can help children) to connect donors to the beneficiaries.

• Gneezy, U., Keenan, E. A., & Gneezy, A. (2014). Avoiding overhead aversion in charity. Science, 346(6209), 632-635.
• Chen, F., & Huang, S. C. (2023). Robots or humans for disaster response? Impact on consumer prosociality and possible explanations. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 33(2), 432-440.