Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 12338

There is an extraordinary amount of money available. The lack is of good ideas on how to get the basket under the apple tree. —Fundraising consultant Tony Kneer, The Economist, July 31, 2004 Private giving to charitable causes has signifi-cantly grown in the past several decades. Recent figures published by Giving USA show that in the United States, charitable gifts of money have been 2 percent or more of GDP since 1998, and more than 89 percent of Americans donate to charity (Aline Sullivan 2002). Experts predict that the combination of increased wealth and an ageing population will lead to an even higher level of gifts in the coming years (see, e.g., The Economist, July 31, 2004, 57). Such trends have left fundraisers, who are typically long on rules of thumb and short on hard scientific evidence