How Corporate Charitable Giving Reduces the Costs of Formal Controls

Charitable Giving

In 2005 charitable giving in the United States totaled over $260 billon, or around 1.9% of personal income, making it a significant fraction of the economy. Individual giving accounted for 77% of this total, while foundations accounted for 12%, bequests for 7%, and corporations for 5% (Giving USA, 2006). Almost 70% of US households report giving to charity. While the US typically has one of the...

Charitable Giving

Are overhead costs a good guide for charitable giving?

Overhead cost ratios are easy to compare across charities relative to other metrics. Many third-party rating agencies rely on overhead cost ratios when evaluating charities, at least in part. Many donors report relying heavily on overhead cost metrics when choosing among charities. Donors exhibit strong distaste for charities that report high overhead costs, even when there is no relationship w...

(Un)Informed Charitable Giving∗

Evidence suggests little informed giving. To understand this behavior, we examine a model of charitable giving with costly information. We find that an individual who considers a smaller contribution is less likely to seek information, and thus the percentage of informed giving diminishes as the population grows. We also find that a direct grant to the charity exacerbates crowding-out by discou...

How Construals of Money Versus Time Impact Consumer Charitable Giving

terms. In other words, marketing communications that effectively leverage alignment between positioning of the cause (i.e., concrete vs. abstract) and the construal activated by a particular resource (i.e., money vs. time) might be 2 JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH