Charity Without Choice: The Impact of Receiving Prosocial Gifts on Subsequent Donations

Summary

This paper examines how receiving prosocial gifts — donations made to a charity in someone else’s name — affects recipients’ willingness to donate to the same charity later. Across four experiments, the authors find that when a prosocial gift is unrequested, recipients are less likely to donate to that charity in future compared with (a) receiving no gift, or (b) receiving a prosocial gift they explicitly requested. The effect is driven by a perceived threat to personal freedom (psychological reactance). Crucially, offering recipients a choice about how the donation is used restores their sense of autonomy and eliminates the negative effect.

Key Points

Unrequested prosocial gifts reduce recipients’ subsequent donation intentions to the same charity.
The reduction is explained by a perceived threat to freedom, producing a reactance response.
Requested prosocial gifts do not produce the negative effect; they can even increase future donation intention.
Providing recipients a choice about how the donation will be used neutralises the backfire effect.
Findings replicate across different charities (Greenpeace, WWF) and multiple samples (MTurk, Prolific).
Managerial implication: charities should enable recipients’ choice or encourage request-driven prosocial gifts to retain repeat donors.

Context and Relevance

Prosocial gifting is growing — many charities now offer ‘gifts that give twice’. This research is important because it reveals an unintended consequence: well-meaning donors can inadvertently alienate potential supporters if the recipient had no say. The study links gift-giving, ethical consumption and persuasion/reactance theory, and offers a simple, evidence-based fix that charities can implement immediately.

Why should I read this?

Short and blunt: getting a charity donation in your name isn’t always a win. If you didn’t ask for it, you might feel patronised and later say no when the charity asks you for money. This paper explains why that happens and shows an easy fix — let people choose how the gift is used (or get them to request it in the first place). If you work for a charity, advise donors, or design gift programmes, this will save you wasted effort and donors.

Author style

Punchy — the research is both timely and actionable. It takes a popular fundraising tactic and exposes a clear downside, while offering a cheap, practical intervention. For charity marketers and fundraisers this is highly relevant: the paper doesn’t just flag a problem, it hands you a solution that preserves donor relations and future revenue.