# What do you think "$20 Suggested Donation" means?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-20-suggested-donation-means/753556
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [May 1, 2016, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-20-suggested-donation-means/753556 "2016-05-01T00:05:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 2

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### Author: ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-think-20-suggested-donation-means/753556/21 "2016-05-02T20:24:17Z")

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“We’d like, but don’t insist on a donation.”

The actual amount is _anchoring_ - by specifying an amount on the high side, they’re resetting your expectation for what the amount should be.

It’s an easy psych experiment to do: set up two small identical events worth a couple bucks of people’s time. For one, suggest a donation, but not an amount. For the other, suggest a $20 donation. The second case will fairly reliably get higher donations across the board, even for people who don’t give the whole $20.

It’s exactly the same principle as the the absurdly high-priced “premium” model of something in shops: $10,000 throw rugs and the like. They don’t expect you to buy it, but it produces a dramatically increased number of sales of the “mid-range” $500 one as opposed to the “bargain” $100 one _just by being there._

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