Knowledge@Wharton: It’s All About Timing: How Nonprofits Can Increase Charitable Donations

“Charitable organizations and nonprofit institutions that rely on donations to fund their activities have to strike a delicate balance between aggressively soliciting money and not turning off donors. New research from Wharton shows that timing is the key to maximizing donations, particularly from people with an existing connection to the organization.

Katherine Milkman, professor of operations, information and decisions, and Judd Kessler, professor of business economics and public policy, joined the Knowledge@Wharton show, which airs on SiriusXM channel 111, to discuss their study, which focused on donations to a hospital system. While the findings have practical implications for nonprofits, the study also offers some interesting insights into reciprocity and human nature. Their paper, ‘A Field Study of Charitable Giving Reveals that Reciprocity Decays over Time,’ was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper was co-authored with Wharton Ph.D. student Amanda Chuan.”

Read more at Knowledge@Wharton.