Explaining the curve in the U-shaped curve

In a previous paper we have demonstrated that for the total population of households, including non-givers, lower income households participate less and donate smaller average percentages of their household incomes than do higher income households. In this paper we inquire about the relative generosity of that sub-population of households that actually donate to charitable causes. We base our analysis on data collected in the 1990 national survey of Giving and Volunteering in the United States conducted by the Gallup Organization for Independent Sector. In the first section we review the factors that differentiate the upward sloping curve describing the population of all households and the U-shaped curve describing the sub-population of contributing households. In the second section we demonstrate that a substantial proportion of the curvature in the U-shaped relationship operates through giving to religion. In the third section we show that giving by the 7 per cent of high givers increases the curvature while the giving by the 93 per cent of normal givers attenuates the curvature. In the fourth section we combine the previous two analyses by looking at the patterns of religious and non-religious giving for both normal and high givers. We conclude that income is not a reliable indicator of who is generous or selfish in regard to philanthropic giving. An earlier version of this paper was prepared for Presentation at the Annual Conference of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, New Haven, October/November 1992. The authors are grateful to the T.B. Murphy Foundation Charitable Trust, the Lilly Endowment, and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy for their support of this research. We are also grateful to Virginia A. Hodgkinson and Stephen M. Noga for providing Independent Sector survey data and for sharing their technical expertise.     

Economic and Sociological Theories of Individual Charitable Giving: Complementary or Contradictory?

This article first sets out the principles of neoclassical microeconomic analysis and examines the advances in our understanding of individual giving to charitable organizations achieved within this framework of analysis. It then turns to sociology and considers alternative conceptions of sociological analysis, especially rational-action theories and the qualitative tradition. The contribution of these to our understanding of charitable giving is explored. The article concludes that rational-choice sociology can complement economic analyses in two ways but that qualitative sociology is contradictory to the economic approach.     

Information Source Reliance and Charitable Giving Decisions

This study examines the relationship between donor reliance on information and donors’ subsequent charitable giving decisions of both time and money. To examine this relationship, we utilize data from an original survey of residents in San Diego County, California (n = 1,002), asking donors about their charitable activities and the information sources that they use to facilitate their charitable decisions. Our findings reveal that relying on information from both nonprofit accrediting agencies and personal experiences positively influences donors’ decision to give time to nonprofit organizations (that is, volunteer), but has no significant impact on decisions to give money. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Social Capital,Volunteering, and Charitable Giving

This paper explores the impact of social capital—measured by social trust and social networks—on individual charitable giving to religious and secular organizations. Using United States data from the national sample of the 2000 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, we find that social trust, bridging social network, and civic engagement increase the amount of giving to both religious and secular causes. In contrast, organizational activism only affects secular giving. Volunteering activity, and human and financial capital indicators positively affect both religious and secular giving. Finally, those who are happy about their lives and those who are religious give more to religious causes, but these factors do not affect secular giving. We find evidence of important differences in the determinants of religious and secular giving, suggesting the need to distinguish these two types of charitable giving in future work.

Examining the Association of Welfare State Expenditure,Non-profit Regimes and Charitable Giving

This paper explores cross-country variations in charitable giving and investigates the association of welfare state policies with private philanthropy. Hypotheses are drawn from crowding-out theory and considerations about the influence of a country’s mixed economy of welfare. We add to the on-going discussion concerning the crowding-out hypothesis with empirical evidence by looking at specific charitable subsectors people donate to across countries. Using Eurobarometer survey data that include 23 countries, we find no evidence for a crowding-out effect, but rather a crosswise crowding-in effect of private donations. Moreover, giving behaviour differs between non-profit regimes.     

Show me the way to the next worthy deed: Towards a microstructural theory of volunteering and giving

Using the data from a survey undertaken in the United States in 1992, this article examines the effects of altruism, self-interest and social ties on motivations to give and volunteer, as well as the effects of volunteering on definitions of life goals. Social ties with non-profit organisations were good predictors of both the value of charitable contributions and the time volunteered for charitable causes. The level of prior philanthropic activism and social connections with philanthropic institutions had an effect on life goals. Altruism and the desire for self-improvement had effects on volunteering, but not on giving. Utilitarian motives (expected career advancement) had no observable effects on volunteering or giving. Based on those findings, a general microstructural model of philanthropic behaviour is proposed. A version of this paper was presented at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.     

Creating trust with major donors: The service encounter model

Although the wealthy individuals who create charitable trusts exert considerable influence on the $123 billion of charitable giving, very little is known about this segment. Aside from data about the size of donations and emerging information about their motivations, the philanthropic and marketing literature is largely silent on issues surrounding major philanthropic acts. For example, what aspects of the service encounter catalyze support and create a successful experience? What are the prior constituent, voluntary, and donor behaviors of individuals who create trusts exceeding $1 million? What support is required from nonprofit and external legal and financial advisers? This article provides a model of the trust creation process framed by insights from the services marketing literature, documents the process empirically, and draws out implications for nonprofit resource development.     

Patterns in Household Giving: Evidence From U.K. Data

The Family Expenditure Survey provides a long time series of household-level data on U.K. charitable giving, which previously has not been exploited. Data analyzed for the period 1978–93 reveal a long-term decline in the proportion of households giving to charity, which persists once we control for changes in other characteristics that affect giving, such as income and wealth. The biggest declines in the number of givers are among younger and poorer households. We also draw out generation-specific trends in a way that is crucial to thinking about future trends in funding for the voluntary sector.     

Does Who Decides Really Matter? Causes and Consequences of Personal Financial Management in the Case of Larger and Structural Charitable Donations

We study causes and consequences of financial management in households in the specific case of charitable giving. We test hypotheses using couples in the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Study (n = 1,101). We find that more relationship specific investments lead to deciding on charitable giving as one economic actor. Furthermore, we find that the partner with the highest relative educational resources has most decision making power over charitable donations. Separately deciding couples are smallest charitable donors. Households in which the male partner decides are largest charitable donors when only larger and more structural donations are considered. This can be explained by their more conservative religious denomination.     

Gender Differences in Charitable Giving in Great Britain

The predominant part of the literature states that women are more likely to donate to charitable causes but men are more generous in terms of the amount given. The last result generally derives from the focus on mean amount given. This article examines gender differences in giving focusing on the distribution of amounts donated and the probability of giving using micro-data on individual giving to charitable causes for Great Britain. Results indicate that women are generally more generous than men also in terms of the amounts donated. Quantile regression analysis shows that this pattern is robust if we take into account gender differences in individual characteristics such as household structure, education, and income. The article also investigates differences in gender preferences for varying charitable causes. Results are presented separately for single and married people, highlighting the very different gender patterns of giving behaviour found in the two groups.

Some thoughts on the validity of estimates of charitable giving

There is but a single source of widely-accepted estimates of charitable giving in the United States, and that isGiving USA, an annual publication of the AAFRC Trust for Philanthropy. This paper examines the validity of those estimates and raises questions that imply a need for further research in this area.Despite the improvements in the quality of the estimates over the years, there remain conceptual, empirical and procedural problems of which all users of the numbers should be aware. The conceptual problems are largely a matter of definition, and it is argued that grants by private foundations should be excluded from the total because foundations themselves are charitable recipients of funds from the rest of society and their inclusion results in double-counting. The empirical problems arise from defects in much of the data from the tax files that are used as sources of information for making the final estimates; some of those defects are spelled out in detail. The procedural problems stem from the lack of comprehensive information about the amounts of charitable giving from individual donors; in making its estimates,Giving USA relies primarily on an econometric equation, some of the variables in which are questionable.     

THE CHARITY OF THE EXTREMELY WEALTHY

In this article, we show that, compared to billionaires who have inherited their wealth, billionaires who have made their own wealth are more likely to sign the Giving Pledge and more likely to be in the Million Dollar Gifts list or the Philanthropy Top 50 list of big givers. If they give, self‐made billionaires also tend to donate more money. We explore several possible explanations for this correlation between the origin of billionaires' wealth and their charitable giving, and present evidence that suggests that self‐made billionaires tend to spend more money, both by giving money away and by buying expensive items. (JEL D03, H40)     

Explaining Trust in Canadian Charities: The Influence of Public Perceptions of Accountability,Transparency, Familiarity and Institutional Trust

Public trust of nonprofits can augment social benefits of the nonprofit sector by enhancing engagement of the general population in the sector. This study analyzed cross sectional data collected from a random sample of Canadians (n?=?3853) to test the effects of respondents’ perceptions of financial accountability, transparency, and familiarity of charitable nonprofits, along with the effects of trust in key institutions on their general trust in charitable nonprofits. Results show that each factor (except for trust in government institutions) has a significant effect on the level of trust respondents had in charitable nonprofits. The study helps advance our understanding of what contributes to trust in charitable nonprofits among Canadians and offers suggestions on how nonprofits can garner greater trust with the population.

     

Alltägliche Helferinnen — unabdingbar und allgegenwärtig — übersehen und vernachlässigt

Natural helpers are central figures in social functioning of community as well as sources of support and help in our everyday life and crisis. But research does not seem to be very interested in what they do and achieve, how and why they do it e.g. Natural helper studies stagnated in the 1980^ties although we know about their importance as strong ties as well as in extended networks. The article reviews natural helpers help giving in different social constellations, situations and contexts.     

A characterization of the Walras rule

This paper has three purposes. First, we refine the characterization of the Walras rule proposed by Nagahisa (JET 1991) over a more natural and simple domain than the one he employed. We show that the Walras rule is the only social choice rule defined over the domain and satisfying Individual Rationality, Pareto Efficiency, and Local Independence. Second, assuming endowments to be collectively owned, we show that the Walras rule operated from equal division is the only social choice rule satisfying No Envy, Pareto Efficiency, and Local Independence. Third, we show that for every social choice rule satisfying Individual Rationality and Pareto Efficiency, Local Independence is equivalent to a condition of Nash implementation with a game form satisfying convexity.This article is a revised version of Toyama University Working Paper No. 141. We are grateful to Professors William Thomson, Shinsuke Nakamura, Tomoichi Shinotsuka and two anonymous referees for their detailed comments. Nagahisa is grateful for hospitality of the economics department of the University of Rochester.     

Research review

The objective of the research section is to promote the dissemination of information about research in the field of social work and related disciplines. Much research in our field, often relevant for action, is not readily available for social work educators and practitioners in Europe. Given the existence of a wide range of research, the EJSW editorial board has decided to include a regular section for presentations about research. We invite all educators, researchers and practitioners engaged in research projects to send us information about their research—whether a note on research in progress or a summary of recent research findings. Submissions will be reviewed by the editorial board and EJSW will regularly include a selected research study. As an initial contribution we are publishing a short article by Françoise Laot, outlining a current EC funded project to facilitate information sharing and dissemination across Europe.     

Engaging Children in Meaningful Charity: Opening-up the Spaces within Which Children Learn to Give

This paper presents qualitative evidence from an in-depth, participative action research project with 150 children aged 4–8 years old, exploring their experiences, perceptions and preferences regarding charitable giving. Most children positively engage in charitable giving through home, school and their community; however, less than 20% are aware of the cause area they are being asked to support, and most have little decision-making in their giving. Children’s willingness to engage increases when they critically examine the cause area and are facilitated to lead on giving decisions, often resulting in increased and sustained efforts to support cause areas that matter to them.     

Cross-National Differences in Charitable Giving in the West and the World

Most theories of cross-national variation in charitable giving have been tested only on samples of countries of Western European culture; this paper applies these theories to 114 countries, including 93 non-Western countries, using data from the Gallup World Poll. It finds strong support for economic and political theories of cross-national variation in charitable giving and partial support for religious and cultural theories. Theories effectively predict variation in giving in middle income non-Western countries but poorly predict variation in low-income non-Western countries. This suggests that economic development, not cultural or religious differences, separate non-Western countries from Western ones in patterns of giving behavior.     

Qualitative research and the computer

This paper explores some of the possibilities of using computers in qualitative research. The common association of computing with quantitative procedures in social science is a very narrow and restricted way of thinking about them. In fact, the predominant use of computers in social science is in text-processing and record-managing tasks, many of which are very similar to the kinds of clerical work which qualitative researchers have traditionally performed for themselves. Recent developments in computing technology have aroused interest in the possibility of using computing as a means to support qualitative research (e.g., Werner, 1982; Drass, 1980; Becker and Gordon, 1984). This paper is not concerned with the details of developing the necessary programs. Rather, it outlines what such a system might do for researchers, and why. The first section makes some general points about qualitative research and introduces the metaphor of the computer as a clerk for organizing, indexing, and retrieving notes. The second section presents a series of specific features which a working computer system might have. The third section discusses current prospects for the development of such systems.The author is grateful to Howard Becker, Nan Chico, Arnold Goldfein, and Anselm Strauss for their encouragement, advice, and suggestions.