Pamala Wiepking

This article examines trust-based philanthropy (TBP) practices as an alternative to short-term, project-based funding, which often perpetuates the non-profit starvation cycle. Drawing on academic literature and practice-based insights from Europe and the US, it explores incentives for adopting TBP and the dilemmas foundations face when selecting partners, cultivating trust, and exiting long-term relationships. The analysis highlights transparency, equity and accountability as critical factors for democratising grant making while addressing systemic challenges in philanthropic practice.

Philanthropic funders increasingly use more unrestricted or flexible grantmaking, with the aim of strengthening nonprofit organizations and their capacities. Empirical research in this area is, however, limited, partly because of a lack of available data. This research note explores whether an existing longitudinal practice‐based survey can be applied to measure nonprofit capacities as conceptualized in the academic literature. We analyze 68 drop‐in centers for people experiencing homelessness in the Netherlands that receive unrestricted support from an endowed foundation. Our results reveal several gaps in existing measurement frameworks and suggest new potential sub‐dimensions of nonprofit capacity. We construct reliable multi‐item scales for strategic planning and external communication and identify additional dimensions—positioning and board continuity, staff and volunteer policy, internal mission orientation, and external mission orientation—that extend current conceptual models. By tracking changes in these capacities over time, we demonstrate the potential of practical longitudinal surveys for studying organizational development. The insights can be used by researchers and practitioners to advance empirical research on nonprofit capacity building.

Transparency means being honest and open about one’s practices. Transparency is considered a gold standard in the nonprofit sector and associated with a range of positive outcomes. We propose that transparency should also become a guiding principle and documented practice for nonprofit scholars. In this article we articulate the context for discussing transparency in social science research and the potential risks of not being transparent. Acknowledging the epistemic and methodological diversity of our field – and therefore the need for flexibility in how transparency will be practiced by different scholars – we encourage nonprofit researchers to consider how they can enhance their research transparency. To this end, we outline the benefits of transparency and offer concrete suggestions for different ways to demonstrate transparency in nonprofit research.

Os autores apresentam uma visão geral da literatura acadêmica sobre doações, baseados em uma revisão da literatura de mais de 500 artigos. Eles estruturam a análise em torno da questão central de porque as pessoas doam dinheiro para organizações sem fins lucrativos. Eles identificam oito mecanismos como as forças mais importantes que impulsionam as doações filantrópicas: (1) percepção da necessidade; (2) pedidos; (3) custos e benefícios; (4) altruísmo; (5) reputação; (6) benefícios psicológicos; (7) valores; (8) eficácia. Esses mecanismos podem fornecer uma estrutura teórica básica para pesquisas futuras que expliquem as doações filantrópicas.

In contexts with high-income inequality, are people more or less inclined to support those in need through philanthropy? Using data from the 2016 wave of the China Labor-Force Dynamics Study, this study examines (i) how income inequality is associated with charitable giving to high-redistributive (e.g., poverty alleviation) and low-redistributive (e.g., arts and culture) causes and (ii) the household and contextual level variation for this relationship. We conduct this study in the unique context of China, where the Communist Party and Chinese government actively encourage charitable giving to play a role in diminishing income inequality. Empirical results show that in China, income inequality has no significant relationship with charitable giving to high-redistributive causes. We do find some support for a small moderating effect of education. Those with a higher level of education living in provinces with higher income inequality give more to high-distributive causes. We also find support for a small negative association with charitable giving to low-redistributive causes, which indicates that people in a context with higher income inequality are less inclined, although not substantially, to give to low-redistributive causes.

How did Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) globally address the needs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic? In this study, we examine the roles CSOs played during the first 18 months of the pandemic, their main challenges, and how the pandemic changed CSOs’ roles in society across 39 countries and economies. Using inductive thematic analysis analyzing responses from global philanthropy experts in two consecutive studies (2020 and 2021), we find that CSOs played fourteen roles, of which we discuss the six most mentioned: providing social assistance; responding to health care needs; coordinating and collaborating with government and business; mobilizing funds to address societal needs; raising awareness and combating misinformation; and advocating. Challenges for CSOs included reduced revenue and difficulty reaching beneficiaries. We found these challenges led to innovative ways of operating and new arrangements between civil societies and governments, which may have opened opportunities for a more active role of CSOs.

This practice paper articulates the key learnings for philanthropic organizations based on their experiences of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Which actions can philanthropic organizations take to best support community needs during times of crisis? To answer this question, we synthesize information about how philanthropic organizations responded during the early COVID‐19 crisis (spring―fall 2020) across 11 countries: Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America. Results indicate four key actions that we recommend philanthropic organizations take during times of crisis: (1) Assess community needs; (2) engage with volunteers and donors; (3) communicate effectively and strategically with volunteers, donors, and the public; and (4) focus on equity.

Many forms of prosocial behaviour are highly institutionalized. They are facilitated by organizations that broker between donors and recipients. A highly effective tool that organizations use to elicit prosocial behaviour are solicitations for donations (e.g., of blood, time, or money). Using register and survey data on blood donations in the Netherlands, we examine to what extent compliance with these solicitations is predicted by being recruited via word of mouth (WOM) and talking about donations. Our model predicts that donors that are one unit higher on our measure of talking about donations (range = 1–4) have a 2.9 percentage points higher compliance with solicitations for donations. In addition, this association is stronger for novice donors. Our study demonstrates the social embedding of the donors’ decision-making processes about compliance. For practice, our results imply that organizations may increase their contributors’ communication about donations to increase the effectiveness of their solicitations.

How can computational social science (CSS) methods be applied in nonprofit and philanthropic studies? This paper summarizes and explains a range of relevant CSS methods from a research design perspective and highlights key applications in our field. We define CSS as a set of computationally intensive empirical methods for data management , concept representation , data analysis , and visualization . What makes the computational methods “social” is that the purpose of using these methods is to serve quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods social science research, such that theorization can have a solid ground. We illustrate the promise of CSS in our field by using it to construct the largest and most comprehensive database of scholarly references in our field, the Knowledge Infrastructure of Nonprofit and Philanthropic Studies (KINPS). Furthermore, we show that through the application of CSS in constructing and analyzing KINPS, we can better understand and facilitate the intellectual growth of our field. We conclude the article with cautions for using CSS and suggestions for future studies implementing CSS and KINPS.