An experiment on donations, personal stories, and bad luck

We conducted two fundraising experiments to study the effects (1) of compassion towards the beneficiary, and (2) of giving participants an opportunity to attribute small donations to luck. We find that exposing the participants to a plea to help the beneficiary increases the average donation. Giving participants an opportunity to attribute small donations to luck decreases the average donation. We find that in our setting, the latter effect dominates. •We conducted two fundraising experiments.•We study: a plea to help the beneficiary vs. attributing decision to luck.•Plea to help the beneficiary increases expressive behavior and increases donations.•Attributing decisions to luck reduces donations.•In our setting, the effect of attributing decisions to luck dominates.