Matt Crispo
11/22/15
Schilling
Consultant Paper If I were giving advice on this subject I would specifically target charities and other organizations that rely heavily on donations from people rather than boosters or an advisory board. What this study showed is that if people were, given notice that someone would could by their house and ask for donations there was a higher chance of no one being home or answering the door. I would give them some numbers on what they study showed so that they could understand what I am saying even more. The study showed that there was a 10 to 25 percent less donating when advanced notice was given. So I would tell them to not give people advanced notice of when they would be going door to door asking for donations. I would tell them to “put people on the spot.” Many people feel obligated to give if they are put on the spot because they do not want to seem like a bad person. However if the organization felt that putting people on the spot was wrong and unethical and insisted on having a flyer giving advanced notice. I would tell them to not include an opt-out or do not disturb option on the flyer. The study showed that having a flyer on the door did not increase or decrease willingness to donate to the cause. When there was an opt-out or do not disturb option, donating decreased by about 30 percent. I would also tell them to hit their own state harder than out of state as people are going to be more willing to donate to a charity or organization in their home state. People are also less likely to donate through mail or internet means. Only one household out of the almost 8,000 households in the study donated through those means. So I would tell them to stick to in person donations. I would also recommend having events such as auctions or charity balls. Some people give because they feel good doing, and others give so that they might be viewed in a better light. I would recommend having large events such as auction or charity ball, because people would enjoy themselves and may want to show off to some of their peers. We all enjoy hearing people say how good of a person we are. It helps build our egos and builds are self confidence level.
This study was very well done and informative. However I feel like it would have been valuable if they had performed this study in multiple states to get more accurate numbers. The study was done in Chicago which has a relatively high poverty rate so that may have contributed to people not donating. This study also mentions that the study was going on pre financial crisis of 2008 and during the peak. This may have skewed the numbers in some ways. People may have not been willing to donate because the financial crisis was hitting them hard. On the other hand some people who were hit by the crisis might have given to the cause because they thought it would bring them some good karma. I also wish that they had included some sort of ethnicity demographic of the participants of the study. It would have been very interesting to me to see if a certain race was more charitable or less charitable than other races. I would also have like to see this study replicated but using different charities. In this study they used a children’s hospital. People are especially sympathetic towards sick and injured children. It would be interesting to see them use a charity that is geared towards adults or even international charity. I would also like to see if there was a difference between one solicitor and two solicitors. I would like to see this because many donate due to the social pressure of the usually one solicitor that is asking for a donation. If there were two would the donating go up because of the extra addition of another person that is pressuring them? I feel like that would be very interesting to see.