From Trees to Vaccines: The Influence of Nonmonetary Donations on Consumer Response

This study investigates the effectiveness of nonmonetary donations (e.g., donating one tree) compared to traditional monetary approaches (e.g., one dollar) that is widely used in practice nowadays. Leveraging a field dataset of 63 cause-related marketing campaigns across 20 consumer good categories and conducting two experiments, the research reveals that nonmonetary framing significantly outperforms monetary framing in driving sales, particularly in hedonic product categories and those with a higher relative price position. These findings suggest that nonmonetary donations may be perceived as providing emotional benefits, while monetary donations may be perceived as additional costs.