Quality certifications for nonprofits, charitable giving, an d donor's trust: experimental evidence

In a n experiment, we test the impact of quality certificates on donation s to a charity. Compared to the control group, participants presented with a quality certificate chose higher donations by around 10% and reported higher trust towards the same charity . The choice of donation values over time shows strong persistence such that the difference between the two groups remained even after all participants were informed about the certificate . Since the initially uninformed donors did not adjust their donations sufficiently upwards, we conclude that quality certification is less likely to affect giving of existing donors . Finally, we find no significant effect of information about certificate fees.