Nature, Your Choice
Choose what you keep and what conservation receives
Make twelve choices between keeping money and supporting conservation. Two people will be selected at random, and one card from each person will be carried out with real money.
Your cash, your choice
If you are selected, you can keep $8 cash. Or you can give up $0.50, $1, $1.50, $2, $3, $4, $5, or $8 of that cash to support a conservation organization. The available amounts differ by card.
The instructor adds the donation support shown on your chosen option, up to $2. Check both what you keep and what the organization receives.
These are the possible outcomes in actual dollars:
| Your cost | Cash kept | Support | Total gift |
|---|---|---|---|
| $0 | $8 | $0 | $0 |
| $0.50 | $7.50 | $0.50 | $1 |
| $1 | $7 | $0 | $1 |
| $1.50 | $6.50 | $0.50 | $2 |
| $1.50 | $6.50 | $1.50 | $3 |
| $2 | $6 | $2 | $4 |
| $3 | $5 | $1 | $4 |
| $3 | $5 | $2 | $5 |
| $4 | $4 | $0 | $4 |
| $4 | $4 | $2 | $6 |
| $5 | $3 | $0 | $5 |
| $8 | $0 | $2 | $10 |
Giving up all $8 means you receive $0 cash if that choice is selected. Keeping all $8 is available on every card.
The same donation can cost you different amounts on different cards. Support is available only for the selected donation. You cannot keep it as cash, and unused support is not spent. You pay nothing from your wallet.
Read the card amounts
The cards use a $100 display scale: $80 of personal cash plus up to $20 of donation support. Actual payments are 10% of the amounts displayed.
Giving up $5 on the card costs $0.50 in actual cash; giving up $15 costs $1.50.
For example, keep $65; give up $15; add $5 support; send $20 means you keep $6.50, give up $1.50, and the instructor adds $0.50 so the organization receives $2. Every option also shows its actual cash and donation below the larger amounts.
Where the donation goes
Each card offers three options:
- Ducks Unlimited: support wetlands and waterfowl habitat. About its conservation work.
- Trout Unlimited: support rivers, streams, and coldwater fisheries. About its conservation work.
- Keep all your cash: receive $8 if that card is selected; no donation is made for your choice.
The organizations decide how to use these unrestricted gifts. No specific number of acres, species, or restored stream miles is promised.
Two people, one card each
- After responses close, two different completed codes are drawn at random.
- For each selected person, one of their twelve cards is drawn at random.
- The instructor pays the actual cash shown and sends the total actual donation shown to the chosen organization, including its support.
Every person and every card has the announced equal chance. Your answers do not affect those chances. Only one card per selected person is paid.
Each selected outcome costs $8–$10 in actual cash plus donations. With two selected people, total spending is at most $20. Unused support stays unspent; it is not added to anyone else’s payment or donation.
Donations are additional to any giving already planned. The instructor will share redacted transfer confirmations.
Make your choices
- Enter your assigned A01–A32 code, not your name or email address.
- On each card, check the cash you keep, the cash you give up, and the total the organization receives. Choose the option you want carried out.
- Review and submit. A certainty rating and explanation are optional. Wait for the recorded confirmation. Recorded choices are final.
Use your own priorities. Keeping the money is valid. There is no need to spread your choices across organizations. Keep your choices private until everyone has finished.
Loading your conservation choices…
Preview only means nothing is submitted or recorded and the preview cannot enter the draw. If a submission times out, retry the same saved response before clearing anything.
- When the organization would receive the same amount, how did the amount of cash you would keep affect your choice?
- When your personal cost was the same, did a larger donation change your choice?
- On cards offering identical cash and donation amounts for both organizations, did the recipient matter? Keeping all your cash was also available.
- Could someone value conservation even if they never visit the places it supports?
- How did the instructor’s support and the larger display amounts affect your decisions? What might change if the cash came from wages you had already received?
What these choices tell us
Six cards use smaller personal costs ($5, $10, $15, or $20 on the display), and six use larger costs ($30, $40, $50, or $80). Everyone receives all twelve in shuffled order.
Some cards offer the same $1 actual donation at different personal costs ($0.50 or $1). Others offer $2 or $3 donations at the same $1.50 cost. Larger-cost comparisons offer the same $5 donation at $3 or $5 personal cost, or $4 versus $6 donations at the same $4 personal cost. These comparisons help us distinguish responses to personal cost and delivered funding. Four cards compare recipients at equal financial outcomes.
Interpret monetary trade-offs in actual dollars. Giving up $80 on the display scale costs all $8 of available cash. Sending $100 on that scale delivers $10, including $2 of instructor support.
These choices describe giving under the announced payment rules. Trust, provided prize money, satisfaction from giving, and responses to donation support can all matter. They do not directly identify the value of particular ecological improvements or the whole of nature. Kotchen (2015) Matching can affect giving through several motives. Hungerman and Ottoni-Wilhelm (2021)
References
Tietenberg, Tom, and Lynne Lewis. 2024. Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. 12th ed. Routledge, pp. 79–80 and 85–91.
Holmes, Thomas P., Wiktor L. Adamowicz, and Fredrik Carlsson. 2017. “Choice Experiments.” In A Primer on Nonmarket Valuation.
Kotchen, Matthew J. 2015. “Reconsidering Donations for Nonmarket Valuation.” Environmental and Resource Economics 62: 481–490.
Hungerman, Daniel M., and Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm. 2021. “Impure Impact Giving: Theory and Evidence.” Journal of Political Economy 129 (5): 1553–1614.