Telling donors that their neighbors have donated high-quality furniture, clothing, and other goods can halve the variety of worthless items charities receive.
This is what my colleagues say Sindy De La Torre Pacheco, Mahyar Eftekhar and I came upon once we partnered with the Phoenix offshoot of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paula charity that helps low-income people to an experiment.
Over 12 days in fall 2020, we followed 763 individuals who had registered to donate their used sofas and other items to the charity. These donors were randomly assigned to receive one in all two emails related to our study or no email in any respect before the charity picked up the items.
One email said, “Most donors give us items that are in great condition and have a high likelihood of being sold in our thrift stores in the valley.” The other said, “Please note that we only accept gently used items. Items that we would have a hard time selling in our stores end up costing us tens of thousands of dollars each month to dispose of, which takes money away from our mission.”
According to the drivers who picked up the donated goods, the common quality of the items was 15% higher when donors received the primary email than after they received the second – or none in any respect. This 15% improvement, in turn, led to a 50% reduction within the variety of donations that needed to be thrown away.
Telling people how much it costs to sort through a mixture of beneficial and worthless items and throw the latter away has not improved the general quality of donations. This is very important because that is precisely what most nonprofits do to Avoid donations that need to be thrown away.
We imagine peer pressure works best because people don't like being told what it costs charities to acquire things they’ll't give away or sell at an inexpensive price to those in need. At the identical time, People are likely to conform to social norms after they find out about them.
Importantly, we found evidence that emphasizing what other donors were doing right didn’t deter them from giving to the charity again.
We found this out by following the identical 763 donors for an additional yr to see in the event that they would make additional in-kind donations. All were equally more likely to achieve this, with about one in five donating additional items to the charity.
Why it is necessary
In 2020, once we conducted this experiment, there have been about half of US households donated clothing, food or other items to a nonprofit organizationThese donations might help charities reduce their costs and increase their impact, while reducing the quantity of solid waste a community generates. In the identical yr Goodwill has diverted £3.3 billion of recyclables from landfillsand the Salvation Army reported revenue of $598 million from its 1,116 second-hand shopswhich represented 18% of its total revenue that yr.
Unfortunately, not all donated goods are useful. Sorting through all of these items takes lots of time and might cost lots of money, as does disposing of things destined for the landfill.
For example, Goodwill Northern New England spends over $1 million annually on Dispose of 6.9 million kilograms of unsuitable items of just 30 thrift stores. Despite this financial burden, turning down donations can damage relationships with donors. That means Goodwill, the Salvation Army and similar organizations must work out the right way to reduce the flow of worthless donations without alienating their supporters.
What shouldn’t be yet known
Understanding why many donors prefer to donate low-quality used goods is critical to developing strategies to enhance charitable practices.
Further research is required to find out whether the successful approach we identified would work generally or whether it is just worthwhile trying in certain situations and with certain communities.
What's next
Our study focused on improving the standard of donated items, but many social organizations could be higher off if more donors gave money as a substitute.
My research team is currently working on a study to find out which strategies are handiest in encouraging donors to provide money somewhat than in-kind donations.
image credit : theconversation.com