141. How to Raise Money Without Killing a Kitten

The science of what works -- and doesn't work -- in fund-raising

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely-not-yolo type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 0:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Hotels.com. Hotels.com helps you find and book the right stay for work faster. With business preferences, save your travel must haves, like gym access or breakfast, just once, then get tailored results whenever you search for work travel. Plus, with a free membership, you can save up to 20% on hotels and earn rewards on every stay for future travel. Book now at Hotels.com. Visit Hotels.com for details.

• 1:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Mint Mobile. With Mint Mobile's summer sale, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. Free yourself from big wireless and switch to Mint for high-speed data and coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. To get your new wireless plan for just $15 a month, go to mintmobile.com/freak. That's mintmobile.com/freak. Upfront payment: $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months. Plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB hotspot. Capable device required. Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

• 2:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you create finished work. You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the Scheduled Tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting Work Mode, available on Plus and Pro plans.

• 2:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Steve Levitt is my Freakonomics friend and co-author. He teaches at the University of Chicago.

• 2:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  So Levitt, we're going to do something today that we've never done before on this program, which is beg. We've been putting out this podcast for, I think, almost four years, all free, and now we're going to ask people for some support. What do you think of that idea? Is that nuts?

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Good luck. It's hard to give things away for free and then ask for money later.

• 3:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  So Levitt, you've worked with some nonprofits trying to raise money. What's considered a good response rate? Let's say I send out 1,000 mailers trying to raise money to help poor children around the world. What's a good response rate?

• 3:34Speaker 01

  So if you're sending those out cold to people who've never given you money before, I think something like 1%, 10 out of 1,000 would be a really good number.

• 3:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  But our audience is a little bit different, right? Anybody who's listening to this is not a cold call. So if we were to ask people to send money to make Freakonomics Radio and keep it free, what kind of response rate you think we'd get here?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  You know, what's hard here is that the mechanism for getting people to send is more difficult. I would say, once a day, someone comes up to me and says, hey, I love the Freakonomics podcast. I listen to it while I jog or while I work out in the gym. I think if you could actually get someone in mid-jog or on the bike at the gym to be able to press a button and send money directly to us, I think you'd actually do okay. The chance that someone's going to get done with their run, go back and take a shower, and then log onto a computer and give you money? I think that's really close to zero.

• 4:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  So you think we'll raise close to $0?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  I do, actually. Yeah.

• 4:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so can I just tell you, listener, not Steve Levitt, this is a fantastic opportunity to prove a relatively smart person totally wrong?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Prove me wrong. I love to be proved wrong.

• 4:59Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 5:20Stephen J. Dubner?

  Here's something I'd like you to try. During the course of the next day, or week, or month, whatever, keep track of how many different people and institutions come at you, in one way or another, with their hands out, asking for a donation. They might be raising money to fight pediatric cancer, to protect a forest, maybe to get some maverick politician elected, or even to make a podcast. Now, why do so many people come at us with their hands out? Because it works. Americans are an extraordinarily charitable people.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  When you look at the data, what we find is that all the way back to 1971, people are giving about 2% to 2.5% of their wallets. So what I mean by that is about 2.2% of personal income is given to charitable causes. So when you look at the data, you have this feeling that, wow, Americans tend to give a ton of money. And when you look from 1971 to 2011, our giving rates have gone up by about 12-fold.

• 6:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's John List. He, like Steve Levitt, is an economist at the University of Chicago. He's done a lot of research and a lot of experiments on fundraising. He's tried to figure out empirically what really works. Now, fundraising is one of those things like education or dating, where there's a massive amount of conventional wisdom, a lot of habits and tradition, but not much science.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  What you have is a lack of strong statistical support that backs up exactly what those people are doing. So you say, "Well, why in the world do they do it?" They do it because that's what their boss told them to do. And in effect, they do it so then if things go wrong, they won't get in trouble.

• 7:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  John List is trying to change that kind of conventional defensive thinking. He and another economist, Uri Ganesi, have just published a book called "The Why Axis." That's "why" as in W-H-Y, as in why do people do the things they do, like giving away money? What could possibly make us give away more than 2% of everything we earn?

• 7:53Speaker 03

  So when you think about why all of this money is given, the economist in me naturally says, "Well, what are the incentives for why people might give?" And I think the traditional feeling is that people tend to give because of altruism. People just want to help another person who is not as well off as they are.

• 8:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  I have a feeling you're going to tell us that not as much of a driver as people would like to think.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  You know, as the data would suggest. Now, we've done these experiments all the way back to 1998, and we're still very actively doing experiments with several charities now. What you tend to find is that people are more driven out of purely self-interest. And what I mean by that is that people give because it gives them a warm feeling. As economists say, or as Jim Andriani would say, people derive a warm glow from giving.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  So now what you have is this idea that if you want to expand your donor base, or if you want to induce people to give more money, you should really now be appealing to, hey, here's what this can do for you. Or if you don't give today, this will actually be taken away and you will no longer be able to use it. Rather than appeal to, say, you know what? You can help this poor person over there. I think fundraisers for years have gotten it wrong, that they need to appeal more to the actual donor, rather than the recipient of those dollars.

• 9:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  So first of all, the first two incentives you've named, one would be, we'll call it pure altruism, and number two would be impure, we'll call it warm glow altruism. I know that's what you economists often call it. And you're saying that while people think that pure altruism is the primary driver, that warm glow altruism is a much stronger driver. Let me just ask you this, there's nothing wrong with that, is there?

• 10:06Speaker 03

  No, absolutely not. As an economist, I really don't care why people give.

• 10:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, you care that you know the real reason so that you can appeal to that, right?

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Absolutely. What I care about is people giving, because it's very important to have private organizations provide the great public goods that we have all over the world. So it's important to know exactly what drives a donor to give and what keeps that donor committed to the cause. Once we know that, we can be more successful in our fundraising drives, and then we can provide more public goods, or more of these goods that the government or private markets fail to provide.

• 10:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  What about a couple other incentives to give? I'm thinking, let's call it guilt or social pressure, maybe?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, so these other reasons why we might give, such as social pressures or guilt, these are very powerful as well. Things like a brownie scout knocking on your door.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  Once you open up that door, you feel a lot of social pressure to actually buy a few boxes of cookies. Now, if you could do it all over again, if you could do an instant replay.

• 11:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  You wouldn't answer the door, would you?

• 11:22Speaker 03

  You would stay and watch the Jets play against the Steelers. Although both those teams are terrible, I'm sorry about that, Stephen. But you would rather sit on the couch. But once you're at the door, then you feel obliged to help out the Brownie Scouts. That is very, very important. Now, that's very important not only for the small givers, but that's a very important influence as well for these very, very large givers. These people who will write checks for a million or $10 million, what society tells them they should be doing is an important driver of their behaviors as well.

• 11:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  What about the herd mentality? Just the idea that if people hear that others are giving to a cause or if the cause itself announces that there's a big pile of seed money, then that will spur others to give.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  I think you've hit on something that's very important. You've pinpointed what economists would call herding or information cascades. And you're exactly right. When others see a person of influence or a person who they think has good knowledge of that charitable cause, if they see them giving, they are much more likely to give themselves. Likewise, if you see a friend giving to a cause, you're much more likely to give to that cause as well.

• 12:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Some years back, John List did some interesting research at East Carolina University. He was sending people door to door, raising money for a hurricane relief fund. He wanted to know what methodology worked best. Is it a good idea to entice donors with a lottery, things like that? But he also wanted to know if it mattered what the person who knocked on your door looked like. Did an attractive person raise more money than an average-looking person? Now, how do you go about doing that? How do you measure it? First, the researchers hired a bunch of college students who would go door to door. And then they took a photo of each of these student solicitors and sent their pictures

• 13:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  to students at a different college, and they now rated every solicitor's looks on a scale of 1 to 10. Then, the solicitors were sent out to knock on doors. What do you think happened?

• 13:46Speaker 03

  What we find is that one obvious result is that the beautiful women ended up raising the most money of all the solicitors that we had.

• 13:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm shocked.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Now, interestingly, that result was entirely driven by men answering the door.

• 14:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now I am.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  So, you know, I don't know.

• 14:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, women didn't give more to good-looking women, you're saying?

• 14:16Speaker 03

  No. So, women don't give more to good-looking women. Women don't give more to good-looking men. This entire physical attractiveness result is driven by men answering the door, and they see this beautiful woman. They say, "Oh, tell me more about this relief fund. Tell me how I can help. Oh, I'd love to help." They get out the wallet, they give more money. Now, again, that's more money going to the relief fund. I can guess why they gave. They probably did not give because they really cared that much about the relief fund. But in the end of the day, the charitable organization didn't care because they had more money coming in. Now scientifically, this turns out to be really interesting because it tells you that

• 15:01Speaker 03

  if altruism was the sole explanatory variable for why people give, beauty shouldn't matter.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  But this is changing an incentive for the solicites. And yes, indeed, the male solicites end up responding, I want to give more money to beautiful women.

• 15:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Give me a sense of how big this beauty effect is. So let's say one solicitor is ranked a nine out of 10 by unbiased or disinterested parties, and one is ranked a six. How much more does the nine raise than the six?

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Right. You're looking at roughly 100% increase when you're looking at going from a six to a nine.

• 15:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, my goodness. And what about hair color?

• 15:43Speaker 03

  So hair color ends up being important as well. And it turns out that blondes certainly have more fun raising more money. You just can't beat a beautiful blonde who's going door to door to raise money for your cause.

• 16:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up on Freakonomics Radio, John List says that one of the best things you can do to raise money is offer a lottery prize.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  So my guess is, is that there are millions of people that would love to have dinner in New York City with Stephen Dubner and Stephen Levin.

• 16:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Millions? I seriously doubt that, but we can give it a try. And if that doesn't work, I wonder if the beauty effect would work on the radio.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  I personally would donate money to Freakonomics, and I think you should, too.

• 17:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat? The sweater that goes with everything? The perfect pair of pants? Or the tea you somehow always reach for first? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality Wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding and bath to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. Find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 17:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com/freak. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/freak.

• 18:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 18:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it, which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 19:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  So if you're trying to raise money for some kind of charity or project, what's the best way to get people to give? The economist John List has been studying this very question for years. He's learned a good bit. Donors love lotteries, for instance, a chance to win a big prize for donating a little bit of money. Matching grants are also a great idea, but a three-to-one match is no better at raising funds than a one-to-one match. So instead of throwing that extra money out there, you could maybe use it to buy a bunch of blonde hair dye. Here's something else that John List says is incredibly useful in raising money: Put the power in the hands of the donor.

• 20:27Speaker 03

  I think that the power of control, what I mean is to control the communications. So I control how often you contact me. It seems like every day when I get home, I have five mailers that I just throw away, and it irritates me because I think that that organization must not be very efficient because they're wasting a lot of money continuously sending me this junk. And I also think the power of providing the good that I want to consume. So think about Freakonomics podcast. One way you could think about raising more money is to say, look, we really want you to help our cause. We need you to give money to help us.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  And you could say, look, we're going to change our relationship. We want you, the listener, to help dictate what we talk about. Or at least a fraction of the things that we talk about will be determined by our donors. You could think about linking the gift itself to a probability of winning a prize. So my guess is that there are millions of people that would love to have dinner in New York City with Stephen Dubner and Stephen Levitt. So why not link that kind of prize, say something like, every dollar you give will give you one chance to win this lottery prize, which is a night on the town with Dubner and Levitt.

• 21:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  You know, because, okay, so I'm actually going to exploit you because you are the master of fundraising and as it happens, we actually are starting our first ever fundraising campaign for Freakonomics Radio. So we've been producing this free podcast for almost four years and we finally are beginning to ask our listeners to pitch in to subsidize the costs. And so in some ways, you know, we're a victim of the success of the podcast in that one of the biggest expenses is bandwidth, literally digital distribution. So the more people download, the more it costs. And we have about 3 million downloads a month, which is great news, but it gets expensive and we have producer salaries and equipment and

• 22:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  music licensing, all that kind of stuff. So if we wanted to right here on the spot with you, John List, the master of fundraising, craft a little fundraising appeal that would really work, you know, we don't want to be just one of those people that begs for money and puts on the whole public radio voice and says, "Support us." We want to, I mean, that may work, I don't know, but we want it to work. So can you, would you mind giving us a hand, walking us through some specifics that we can try to do to raise money?

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Sure, absolutely. So a first general theme should be that you appeal to exactly what the donors want to consume. You have to tell the donors, here's what we provide and here's what you will lose, importantly, lose.

• 23:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  See, I'm uncomfortable saying that. That feels like a, "Give us money or we'll kill your kitten."

• 23:30Speaker 03

  Is it true? I mean, if you will really kill the kitten if you don't receive money?

• 23:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, it's not true. I'm not-

• 23:38Speaker 03

  So if that statement's not true, then you don't want to say it?

• 23:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right. Like, if people don't give us any money-

• 23:43Speaker 03

  We're off the air.

• 23:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, you know, I guess in a matter of time, we would be, but I guess I'm not comfortable with that appeal. Because, you know why? Can I tell you why, John?

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 23:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  It feels, it feels desperate.

• 23:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  And I, and the way I feel is, we neither are desperate, nor, maybe even more so, I don't want to appear desperate, because-

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 24:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  I don't like to be around people who are desperate, even if they are. I'm just like a, you know-

• 24:10Speaker 03

  No, I'm with you. But also, if you came in and told me, if you would just give $50, we can, for another year-

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Put out these podcasts, you know what? I turn from a free rider to a giver because I value the podcast at more than $50. Now, I get that you don't want to be desperate. So, let's just say a general theme is you want to focus your call on the services that you provide to your listeners. Not that they're going to help somebody else become a better person. Okay, so that's a general theme is what you can do for your givers. Now, secondly, I think it is important to link the podcast dollars that come in with a private good that these people like.

• 25:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, we actually have just drawn up some prizes. They're not that shocking, but they're kind of fun. So, like, for 60 bucks a year, someone gets a Freakonomics mug. We're making a great mug. Freakonomics Radio mug. It's actually got content on it from the radio. 75 bucks a year, Freakonomics Radio t-shirt. And for 360 bucks a year, so these are, you know, monthly sustaining memberships, a certain amount a month, 360 a year or 30 bucks a month, they get the signed book. But what you're saying is, as good as those may be, that the lottery component is really good. So, if we say everybody that contributes anything at all, or even just pretends they want to contribute, could be entered into a lottery, and we'd bring them to New York

• 25:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  and take them out to dinner, maybe have them spend the day here at WNYC at the radio studio and see how we make the sausage. You're saying that's like a no-brainer. We should definitely do that.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  I think so. I think as long as you can do that under the laws of gambling, which of course you need to check out, I think that is a no-brainer.

• 26:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, what about, you mentioned that maybe the most prominent driver of philanthropic giving is what's called warm glow altruism, that people feel, you know, that they get something good that makes them feel, that makes them glow for giving the money. Is there any way that we could pitch Freakonomics Radio, you think, in that direction? I can't think of any. I mean, I find us, you know, not very glowy.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, so when I think about Warm Glow, I think about it as if you give money to that cause, you can actually sit around the Thanksgiving table and brag to your mom about how good of a person you are because you just gave money to that specific cause.

• 26:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, I don't see that working for us.

• 26:46Speaker 03

  I don't. With Freakonomics Radio, if I sat around the Thanksgiving table and said, "Hey, Mom and Dad,"

• 26:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  You don't get invited back for Christmas.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  "Remember, my dad's a truck driver. Yeah, my mom's a secretary," and I say, "I just, you know what I gave, you know what I'm gonna give you for Christmas is a $100 charitable contribution to the Freakonomics Podcast. Look, I might be out in the snowbank eating my turkey." So I think, I have to think about it further, but I don't see, I don't see Warm Glow. I see the Freakonomics Podcast as more of a private good, actually.

• 27:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  Uh, I, even though, I get that it's a public good, and I get that once you provide it, people can free ride, but the consumption of it ends up being one that, "Look, I wanna consume it because it's gonna help me."

• 27:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Right, right, right.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  And if I don't have these podcasts for some reason, I might not be as good of a person.

• 27:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  So should that be our message, which is that if you don't help support us, you will become, you know, an idiot?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is a nuclear button that you said you didn't wanna push.

• 27:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, no, no. The other, the nuclear button I didn't want was if you don't support us, we won't make it. Cause I'm not willing to do that.

• 28:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, but what are you gonna do, then, make, uh, lower quality?

• 28:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Exactly, yeah. It's just like, if, you know, if we don't have the, we're just gonna make this stuff, it's gonna make your ears bleed after a while.

• 28:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  You won't get out of it what you think you'll want out of it.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I'll call that the quasi-nuclear button. We're gonna give you something, but it's gonna be crap.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  But I do like the angle of, you know, appealing to what they're getting individually out of this. I think that has to be it.

• 28:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is there any kind of positive message you could imagine, like, you know, keep your brain cells alive?

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Or keep your neurons firing.

• 28:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  There you go. I like that.

• 28:43Speaker 03

  Here's what would be really cool, Steve, and if we put one guy in an FMRI, listening to some ordinary radio show.

• 28:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  I like where you're going.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  And then put another guy in the FMRI, listening to one of, or a series of your podcasts, and we found that parts of the brain that importantly led to good things in society, you know, better, deeper thinker, more analytical, and you can say, look, we can keep providing this. Look at this guy. Here's a brain on Freakonomics. Here's a brain on...

• 29:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  That is awesome. So, let me ask you this. When you sent solicitors door to door to raise money, you found that good-looking people do better. They raise more money. Now, this is radio, podcast/radio, and I think I have a great face for radio. So, no one's seeing what we look like. But since some people do know what we look like versus other people, should we just get some really good-looking, well-known people, one or two, to ask for us?

• 29:55Speaker 03

  I would say both. I think some people want to see you and Steve. I think other people want to see others who they want to emulate tell them that this is a good product, and they should consume it, too.

• 30:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, podcast listeners. That was John List, the mad scientist of fundraising. And we'd be fools to not follow his advice. So, as John suggested, I asked Steve Levitt to pitch in on our fundraising appeal. Here's what Levitt said.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Knowing you, I don't think your objective is really to raise the most money. Your objective is to make the listeners as happy as possible by giving them the option to be happier by giving us some money.

• 30:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  Oh, that's such a nice way of putting it. We are trying to please our listeners by giving them the option of participating.

• 30:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, so if that does not appeal to you, let me remind you that we are offering Freakonomics Radio swag if you come to Freakonomics.com and make a donation. There's a Freakonomics Radio t-shirt, a Freakonomics Radio mug, all brand new. I don't mean, "brand new" as in not used by other people, which they are not, but brand-new designs, just for this Freakonomics Radio fundraiser. You can also get a signed copy of our book, if that would make you happy.

• 31:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, John List also told us that it's a good idea to mention that other people are already donating. So let me say this: we've only just turned on the fundraising button on Freakonomics.com, and already, we've got donations pouring in from Roberto in Brazil, from Chris in New Zealand, Christian in Malta, Mark from New Jersey, and Daniel from Washington State. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "I don't know any of those people." And moreover, I don't know if they're good-looking. Remember what John List said about the beauty effect?

• 32:00Speaker 03

  What we find is that, one obvious result is that beautiful women ended up raising the most money of all the solicitors that we had.

• 32:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, then. In the name of science...

• 32:18Speaker 04

  I'm Savannah Saunders. I'm a student at Swartma College. I'm also a model, and I think you should donate to Freakonomics today.

• 32:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  She's with the Wilhelmina Agency in Miami.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  I advocate for Freakonomics, like, family, friends. It's my very favorite.

• 32:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  Are we, uh, are we taking off in the Wilhelmina modeling community?

• 32:39Speaker 04

  I haven't yet seen it take off there, but I'm sure it will. I will be spreading the word at casting.

• 32:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, Savannah, and as you spread this word, what will you actually tell people?

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Well, Freakonomics Radio is great because it opens people's minds to the hidden side of everything, which is just, um, really special, and no other economist do it like Stephen Governor and Stephen Lovett. I personally would donate money to Freakonomics, and I think you should, too.

• 33:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, we also asked John List if good-looking men raised more money.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, we didn't have, we didn't see a lot of that in our data, that, that beauty effect was really not driven by better-looking men. That's, that's not anywhere in our data.

• 33:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  John List is probably right, but you know what? This is important to us, so just to be sure, I want to cover all our bases. Okay. Hey, Adrian.

• 33:41Speaker 05

  Hey, what's up?

• 33:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  How's it going?

• 33:43Speaker 05

  Fantastic. And yourself?

• 33:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  Great, thanks. You sound good. What are you working on?

• 33:47Speaker 05

  Oh, quite a number of things.

• 33:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, Adrian, you're an actor and director and musician. You've also made some really good documentary films. You're an environmental activist, which may, a lot of people may not know about you. But at this stage, you may still be best known for playing Vincent Chase on Entourage. You think that's the case?

• 34:07Speaker 05

  I'd say that would be accurate, yes.

• 34:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay. And would you also say it's accurate that you are, well, I guess this is a matter of opinion, but it strikes me, let me put it this way, it strikes me that you are the best-looking human male I have ever met, or maybe that's ever existed.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  Wow. You always were such a big flirt, weren't you, Stephen?

• 34:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  But, I mean, you're a good-looking fellow. We can agree on that?

• 34:35Speaker 05

  Well, thank you.

• 34:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right. Well, here's what I'm getting to. So, even though this is radio, people can't see you, they do know what you, Adrian Grenier, look like. So I'm wondering if you would just turn on your good-lookingness over the radio and help us out?

• 34:50Speaker 05

  All right. One, two, three. How was that?

• 34:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  That was good. I'm hearing it. I'm feeling it. So, what are you, what are you willing to say for us? You know, are you willing to say that, hey, I'm Adrian Grenier and I'm a certified attractive person and, I mean, it's up to you.

• 35:12Speaker 05

  Well, you know, I don't know. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I really do believe that. But if it'll help you out, I would just say maybe, you know, you could go to my Instagram, @AdrianGrenier, and if you like what you see, then support Freakonomics Radio.

• 35:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  All right, we've almost emptied our bag of tricks. But as John List told us, people love a lottery. So let's do it. If you go to Freakonomics.com and click on the donate button, you'll automatically be entered into a lottery to come to New York, have some lunch with me and the Freakonomics Radio team, even spend the day with us if you want, watching us make the podcast, which I have to tell you, is extremely exciting to watch. But we will fly you to New York from anywhere in the US. We'll put you up in a hotel and give you more Freakonomics swag than you can possibly carry home, which means you may have to buy an extra bag and pay a bag check fee. And you know what? We'll pay that, too. You don't even have to make a donation to enter the lottery, but of course, we hope you will.

• 36:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  So thanks to all of you for listening, as always, and a special thanks to anyone who does go to Freakonomics.com to make a donation. And I look forward to meeting one of you very soon.

• 36:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, podcast listeners. On next week's show, let's say your cat dies. First of all, I'm sorry for your loss, but now you get him cremated and you want the ashes back. How would you know the ashes you get back are his?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  It's like bone to me. This is not residue from what you sent them.

• 37:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Please join us for the troubled cremation of Stevie the Cat. That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes David Herman, Greg Rosalsky, Borey Lamb, Susie Lechtenberg, and Chris Bannon. If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com, where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books, and more.

• 38:05Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com.

• 38:38Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 39:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility. It's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.

• 39:46Speaker 06

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