Comparing Money and Time Donation: What Do Experiments Tell Us?

Abstract

Money donation and time donation, as charitable donations from individuals to organizations, are two forms of prosocial behavior that have been increasingly studied in recent years. Despite the vast amount of research about money and/or time donation, however, only limited work has been done on reviewing the research on these two forms of charitable donations as comparable or parallel entities. In this paper, we seek to help fill this gap by reviewing the existing research. We applied the backwards and forwards snowballing technique to arrive at a review sample of 39 experimental papers published in 2000–2020 that have compared money and time donation, or at least analyzed them as two parallel entities. We examine the issues that are predominantly considered in these experimental papers and summarize the general directions of their findings. We also point out certain gaps in the existing literature and posit some potentially fruitful directions for future experimental research regarding money and time donation.