Microgiving with Digital Platforms

Microgiving, a new form of digital fundraising, operates by soliciting minuscule, recurring donations from large numbers of potential donors. We evaluate a charity subscription program operated by Alibaba, China’s largest retail platform, which allows sellers to pledge a tiny portion of a product’s revenue (2 cents per order) to charity, with donations made automatically as transactions occur. We present three sets of descriptive findings. First, sellers tend to pick their best-selling products for charity subscription, and many did so right before sales promotion of the associated products. This suggests revenue-maximizing motives. Second, charity subscriptions are almost never canceled, despite limited evidence that they increase revenues; interview evidence suggests that sellers’ decision to keep donating is sustained by joys of giving that worth the tiny monetary sacrifices; we also observe sellers to purchase more charity-linked products themselves after they become charity subscribers. This suggests warm-glow utilities. Third, between 2018 and 2020, the program attracted more than 2 million Alibaba sellers and generated 1.2 billion yuan of charitable funds, representing one of China’s largest online fundraisers and accounts for 12% of the country’s overall online charitable sector. We conclude that digital platforms can create an incentive-compatible environment to scale up microgiving.