PROMISED CONTRIBUTIONS TO CHARITY AND MAIL SURVEY RESPONSES: REPLICATION WITH EXTENSION

The efficacy of four types of incentives for stimulating mailsurvey response rates was examined against a no-incentive controlgroup. Two of the incentives were enclosed personal cash rewards(25ø and $1), and two were promised rewards. Of the latter,one was an impersonal reward, the promise of a $1 contributionto a charity of the respondent's choice, and one a personalreward, the opportunity to win a $200 cash prize. As hypothesized,the personal cash rewards generated response rates that weresignificantly higher than that of the control group. Also ashypothesized, the charity-incentive group produced a responserate that was not significantly different from the control group.Discontinuation of the use of charity incentives should be seriouslyconsidered by future researchers. In contrast, the cash prizeincentive yielded a significantly greater response than thecontrol group, as expected, and was on par with the 25øgroup. Additional investigation of the use of cash prize incentivesis recommended.