Planned giving is an important source of income for the not for-profit sector. It can provide a more reliable source of income, reduce the need for expensive fundraisers and help charities to plan their activities. More employers are offering workplace giving programs but participation remains low. BETA conducted three trials to test different interventions to increase planned workplace giving. The first trial found a behaviourally informed email increased workplace giving participation more than a basic information email. The second trial found the best performing intervention was an email from a senior manager (rather than a peer), combined with the simpler sign up process. The third trial tested whether introducing a time delay between sign-up and starting payroll donations increased giving. Despite a small number of additional sign ups in the time delay group, we found no significant difference between the treatment groups on the number of people who signed up or donation amounts.
Our studies in two APS departments show sending employees emails with information about their workplace giving program can increase participation. Behaviourally informed emails from a senior manager can have an even bigger impact. Testing in different organisational settings is important as we found the behaviourally informed emails did not increase workplace giving sign-ups in a corporate environment. Making the sign up process as easy as possible is important and alternative mediums to email should be considered if email communication is already heavily relied upon in the workplace. Applying these small, low-cost changes can increase charitable workplace giving.
Registration date
Trial 1: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
Trial 2: Tuesday, 29 January 2019
Intervention start and end date
Trial 1:
- Start: Wednesday, 21 March 2018
- End: Wednesday 18 April 2018
Trial 2:
- Start: Wednesday, 21 November 2018
- End: Wednesday 21 December 2018
BETA ethics pre-registration number
Trial 1: BETA ETH
Trial 2: BETA ETH 2018 - 03, 6/09/18
Experimental design
Trial 1: An unbalanced three-arm RCT randomised at the individual level and a pre-post observational trial. Data will be collected at two follow-up periods: two and four weeks after intervention delivery.
Trial 2: A 2x2 factorial randomised trial, randomised at the individual level. Data collected at two follow-up periods: two and four weeks after intervention delivery.
Intervention(s)
Trial 1: Two different behaviourally informed interventions will be distributed to employees.
Trial 2: Two interventions (presented individually and in combination) were tested.
Control condition
Trial 1: Pure control, attention control
Trial 2: No pure control (a before/after comparison will be used to estimate the effect of receiving no email)
Outcome(s)
Trial 1
Primary outcomes:
- Workplace giving (WG) participation (joining or not joining).
- Change in average fortnightly WG donation.
Secondary outcomes:
- Total amount of money directed to WG each fortnight.
- Change in comprehension of WG.
- Charities receiving donations.
- Number of email read receipts.
- Number of click-throughs from email to WG sign-up page.
Trial 2
Primary outcome:
- Workplace giving (WG) participation (providing any donation).
Secondary outcome:
- Change in average fortnightly WG donation.
Expected sample size
Trial 1: 1,315 employees in the RCT. 687 employees in the pre-post trial.
Trial 2: 2,250 employees in the RCT.
Registration number
Trial 1: BETA ETH 2018 – 01
Trial 2: BETA ETH 2018 – 03
Other
Trial 1: Shea Houlihan, 2018. AEA pre-registration
Trial 2: BETA, 2019. AEA pre-registration