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Does Windfall Money Encourage Charitable Giving? An Experimental Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Huafang Li Open the ORCID record for Huafang Li [Opens in a new window] ,
Jie Liang ,
Hui Xu  and
Yingxi Liu
Huafang Li*
Affiliation:
School of Public, Nonprofit and Health Administration, Grand Valley State University, 401 Fulton St. W, 246C DeVos Center, Grand Rapids, MI 49504, USA
Jie Liang*
Affiliation:
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Rd., Yangpu, Shanghai 200433, China
Hui Xu*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Beijing Normal University, 19 XinJieKouWai St., HaiDian District, Beijing 100875, China
Yingxi Liu*
Affiliation:
Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, 237 Longquan Rd., Kunming 650211, Yunnan, China
*
lih@gvsu.edu
xiaogan2008@gmail.com
xuhui@bnu.edu.cn
yingxi.liu.0711@gmail.com
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Abstract

Recently, increasing numbers of nonprofit studies have used experiments to understand individuals’ charitable giving decisions. One significant gap between experimental settings and the real world is the way in which individuals earn the incomes that they use for charitable donations. This study examined the relationship between individuals’ income sources and their charitable giving decisions. To do so, we conducted a laboratory experiment with 188 college students and asked them to donate with windfall money or with money earned from a real task, respectively. The findings showed that participants donated more to charities if their funds derived from windfall gains. Implications for conducting experiments and motivating donors are also discussed.

Keywords

Windfall effectCharitable givingLaboratory experiment

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , August 2019 , pp. 841 - 848
Copyright
Copyright © International Society for Third-Sector Research and The Johns Hopkins University 2018

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