The more tangible the better? Assessing the different forms of tangibility on donations

Research on pro-social behavior suggests that tangibility increases effectiveness in donation requests. However, there are different elements (i.e. who needs the donation, what will be done with the money, how needy the victims are, and what they expect from the donor) that can increase tangibility in solicitation messages. It is still unclear if all these factors equally increase effectiveness in donation requests and, if not, which is the most important. Using an experimental approach with conjoint analysis, we found that all factors that increase tangibility also increases donation intentions but showing how needy the victims are was the most important. Our results suggest that practitioners should incorporate all elements that make a message tangible to make it more persuasive.