Seeing Is Giving: The Role of Visual Identifiability in Online Donations—Evidence From a Large-Scale Field Study

Theories of donation decisions, particularly those addressing beneficiary effects, have attracted scholarly interest for decades. However, most studies have been conducted in settings where visual cues (e.g., photos of recipients) correspond to the actual number of beneficiaries. In this study, we analyze a large dataset of real-world fundraising campaigns from an online donation platform to test predictions from prevailing theories of charitable giving. We focus on the effects of visual cues alone, independent of the actual number of beneficiaries, as is typical in online appeals. Specifically, we examine whether including a photo featuring a human recipient (vs. a non-human image) increases prosocial engagement (visual identifiability), and whether campaigns with a photo of a single identified individual attract more donations than those with a photo of multiple identified individuals (visual singularity). We find evidence supporting the visual identifiable victim effect, but not the visual singularity effect. These findings clarify how laboratory-based insights into donation decisions extend to real-world fundraising contexts and have practical implications for individuals and organizations seeking to optimize fundraising campaigns.