Study: Donors 80 Percent More Likely to Donate If Entire Gift Goes to Mission

A charity can't make its overhead costs disappear, but it can make it appear to be zero from the perspective of an individual donor: First convince a donor to cover overhead costs, and then everyone else can be told that 100 percent of their donations will go to the mission. When subjects in a new study were told that all of their donation would go directly to the cause, they were 80 percent more likely to donate compared with the same charity with a seed fund, and 94 percent more likely compared with matching donations.