Understanding how volunteer engagement influences subsequent charitable giving remains a central question in nonprofit management. This study employs a large-scale randomized field experiment involving over 149,000 individuals who had no prior volunteering or donation to a large nonprofit organization. By comparing a group that received additional volunteer recruitment emails to a control, the research examines changes in both volunteer participation and later donation behavior. Results reveal that enhanced volunteer encouragement increases volunteer participation by 10% and subsequent donation participation by 32%, while leaving the average amount given unchanged. These findings provide robust causal evidence that volunteering elevates the likelihood of future charitable giving but does not affect per-donor giving. The study introduces an experimentally validated approach for disentangling behavioral spillovers from standard nonprofit marketing activities. Strategic implications include integrating volunteer recruitment and fundraising, highlighting optimal approaches for nonprofits to encourage both active engagement and financial support within their communities.
Gupta et al. (Tue,) studied this question.