Blondes Have More Funds When Raising Charitable Donations, Study Finds

By Holly Hall

Charities raise more money going door to door when they get attractive young women to do the asking, particularly if they are blonde, a new study has found.

The research, with 44 undergraduates who were hired to raise money for a new nonprofit research center at their university, examined how the students’ attractiveness and personalities, as well as incentives they offered to potential donors, affected door-to-door solicitations.

The students’ attractiveness was rated by a panel of more than 150 people they did not know, and the undergraduates also completed questionnaires designed to assess their personality, such as whether they were assertive, sociable, or self-confident.

They then approached nearly 5,000 homes and spoke with 1,755 residents, 522 of whom made a donation.

Women whose beauty was ranked highest received more donations than other women and more than any of the men, raising more than double the hourly amount of the other solicitors.

The study was conducted by five economists at institutions that included East Carolina University, in Greenville, N.C., where the door-to-door solicitations took place.

Undergraduates who were both blonde and beautiful raised $1.52 more per household approached than brunette women of equivalent attractiveness.

The most attractive women’s fund-raising advantage, however, disappeared with potential donors of their own sex. Their results, the researchers wrote, “are entirely driven by households where a male answers the door.”

Assertiveness a Turnoff

Personality traits had less impact than beauty on how much money the students raised. Some solicitors who scored high on assertiveness, however, were less likely to receive a contribution than those who were shy. “Assertiveness in door-to-door fund raising can appear to be pushy and turn off potential contributors,” said John A. List, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who helped devise the study.

The types of incentives offered to potential donors made a bigger difference than the solicitors’ personalities.

Some of the undergraduates simply asked for a contribution, but others told potential donors that a gift would make them eligible to win a $1,000 prize in a raffle. Still others told people they could win one of four $250 raffle prizes, and the remaining solicitors told people that the organization had already received $1,000 from an anonymous donor.

People who were told their names would be entered into a lottery were more likely to give and to donate more on average than those who were simply asked to contribute or told that the charity had already received money from others.

The average contribution per household was $1.89 when the $1,000 single prize was mentioned and $1.52 when people were told they could win one of four smaller prizes. By comparison, the students raised $1.01 per household when they simply made a request for money and $1.16 when they told people that others had supported the charity. Among people who made donations, however, the largest average gifts were made by those who were told the charity had received other contributions.

An article on the study, “Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Charity: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” appears in the May edition of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/qjec.