“随缘”捐款的行为助推机制：理论分析与实验检验

Sustaining a healthy level of charitable giving requires regular contributions from numerous small donors, but in fact, people rarely make minuscule donations, and many would instead give nothing than give little. Why? How could charities elicit and continue to amass small gifts? Research on donor motivations and behavioral nudges suggests that to increase the share and frequency of small contributions, one must remove the (psychological or procedural) frictions faced by potential donors when they contemplate the decision. In recent years, empowered by information technologies, online fundraising platforms in China have begun to demonstrate great potentials to raise money from many. Novel fundraising strategies have emerged, including a mechanism that this project refers to as “Randomly Generated Donations (RGD)”: When determining whether and how much to donate, individuals can click on a displayed “I’m feeling lucky” button, allowing the background program to draw a random donation amount from an unspecified distribution for them. Is RGD effective? Could it break the stigma around making "trivial" contributions? The existing literature has not examined these questions using scientific methods. Informed by the experimental and theoretical research on charitable giving, this project employs the framework of individual decision-making to investigate how RGD affects donor behavior and subsequent fundraising outcomes, aiming to provide fundraisers with scientific evidence on the optimal design of elicitation methods.

维持健康的慈善捐赠水平需要众多捐赠者持续做出小额捐赠，但现实中微捐款频次低，很多人宁愿不捐也不愿少捐，原因何在？怎样才能鼓励海量微捐？行为经济学领域有关捐赠动机和行为助推的研究表明，提高小额捐款比例和频次的一个关键在于消除选择微捐的心理和行为障碍。近年来，在信息技术的扶持下，互联网募捐已在我国展现出聚合微捐赠的潜力。新颖的募捐方式层出，其中包括本项目称之为“随缘”捐赠的一种激励机制：个体在考虑是否捐款时，可通过点击屏幕上一个写有“随缘”二字的按钮，让募捐方后台程序随机生成捐款额。“随缘”捐款机制的募捐效果如何？能否消除阻碍个体做出微捐的选择障碍？现有文献尚未采用科学方法系统作答这些问题。本项目通过实验室实验和建模分析，从个体行为决策的角度研究该机制的募捐效果和助推原理，并在此基础上开展实地实验，以期发现该机制的应用价值和政策意涵，进而为募捐方有效获取海量微捐提供科学证据。

随着我国移动支付的快速普及，网络募捐已成为一种重要的发展趋势。相应的，募捐平台涌现出许多新奇的募捐设计。本项目采用行为实验方法，研究一种具有中国特色的网络慈善募捐机制（“随缘”捐）的行为助推效果和原理。基于“随缘”捐在现实应用场景中的特征，设计并开展经济学实验采集行为数据，评估“随缘”捐如何影响捐款率及捐款人的平均捐款额。研究发现：（1）从募捐结果来看，“随缘”捐如同一把双刃剑：它能显著提高捐款人的平均捐款额，也能显著降低捐款率。（2） 从助推原理来看，“随缘”捐扮演着双重角色：它为捐款意愿高的人群提供了寻价功能，却对捐款意愿低的人群产生了劝退效果。最后，（3）“随缘”捐的利与弊具有很强的情境性，其助推效用最终是正面的还是负面的，很大程度上取决于与之配合使用的其它助推机制，如小额捐款建议提示和不同大小的参考捐款额。这些研究发现揭示了在复杂动机捐款人背景下网络募捐机制可能存在的两面性，也对如何在实操中优化“随缘”捐的设计提供了有价值的参考。