Inter-charity competition and efficiency: Considerations beyond fundraising and tax incentives for giving

While insights into optimal fundraising strategies inform the debate on whether fundraising is valuable to non-profits seeking to maximize their charitable income, they do not speak to questions related to production efficiency or the optimal size and shape of the sector. Answering these questions requires a broader perspective. We argue that such a broader perspective must take into account the implications of inter-charity competition and donor responses for (i) the distribution of donations across charitable causes, across time and in aggregate; (ii) the technological choices charities make when deciding on how to convert donations and other inputs in the production of charitable outputs; and (iii) the structure of charitable markets. Using the insights from (i)–(iii), we then discuss the scope of government policies and tax incentives.