Gratitude and generosity: Does putting the “you” in “thank you” promote giving behavior?

• In Event: Success factors in Fundraising

Abstract

Thanking donors is an important part of being a fundraiser. It can help build relationships with donors, which can lead to future gifts. But what are the elements of an effective “thank you”? This is the question that our research aims to address. Expressing gratitude has been found to promote helping and giving behavior (Algoe, Dwyer, Younge, & Oveis, 2020; Grant & Gino, 2010; Williams & Bartlett, 2015). Simply thanking someone who’s done something nice for us can make them more likely to help us in the future. However, not all studies have found this to be true, with some showing no effect of expressing gratitude (e.g., Samek & Longfield, 2019). Therefore, we look beyond whether a person was thanked or not, and instead consider the quality of the gratitude expression. After all, not all gratitude expressions are identical, and some expressions might be more effective than others. Theory points to one aspect of a “thank you” that can make it more potent, specifically the extent to which it involves other-praising behavior, or calling out the praiseworthy actions and characteristics of a benefactor (Algoe, 2012). And research has found that other-praising gratitude expressions are more effective in promoting relationships than those focused on self-benefits (Algoe, Kurtz, & Hilaire, 2016). We take this work a step further by examining the influences of these two kinds of gratitude expressions on charitable giving. We ran two preregistered field experiments (Ns = 1009 and 847, respectively) to examine the question: Compared to self-benefit expressions, do other-praising expressions in thank-you messages increase donor retention and level of future donations? Donors to a large public university were randomly assigned to receive a thank-you call (Study 1) or text message (Study 2) from a student that used either a self-benefit script or an other-praising script. The dependent variables were whether donors made a subsequent gift and whether those gifts were less than, the same as, or more than their previous donation. In both studies, we found a significant advantage of the other-praising script in promoting subsequent giving, although in Study 1 this only occurred when a conversation was had (as opposed to when a voicemail was left). We did not find an effect of script type on giving amount in either study. In conclusion, our findings suggest an advantage of other-praising gratitude expressions on whether people give, but not on how much they give. These are the first findings that we are aware of on the effect of these two types of gratitude expressions on people's charitable giving behavior. Overall, our results suggest that fundraisers should consider not just the quantity, but also the quality of thank you messages, and consider praising donors when they thank them.

References

Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(6), 455–469.

Algoe, S. B., Dwyer, P. C., Younge, A., & Oveis, C. (2020). A new perspective on the social functions of emotions: Gratitude and the witnessing effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 119(1), 40–74.

Algoe, S. B., Kurtz, L. E., & Hilaire, N. M. (2016). Putting the “you” in “thank you”: Examining other-praising behavior as the active relational ingredient in expressed gratitude. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 7(7), 658–666.

Grant, A. M., & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946-955.

Samek, A., & Longfield, C. (2019). Do thank-you calls increase charitable giving? Expert forecasts and field experimental evidence. Expert Forecasts and Field Experimental Evidence (April 13, 2019).

Williams, L. A., & Bartlett, M. Y. (2015). Warm thanks: Gratitude expression facilitates social affiliation in new relationships via perceived warmth. Emotion, 15(1), 1–5.

Authors

• Patrick C Dwyer, IUPUI - Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

• Audra Vaz, University of South Carolina