Keeping the Faith : Origins of Confidence in Charitable Organizations and its Consequences for Philanthropy

Origins and consequences of charitable confidence are investigated with the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey 2002-2004 (n=1,246). Charitable confidence is higher among the higher educated, children of volunteers, younger age groups, those with more faith in people, those who are aware of standards of excellence for fundraising organizations, and among persons with altruistic and joy-of-giving motives for philanthropy. In a regression analysis, the relationship of confidence with philanthropy is found to be moderately strong. The relationship is strongest for donations to organizations that deal with social problems that are difficult to solve, like poverty, illness, and violation of human rights. Beliefs about program spending and irritation about fundraising campaigns confidence partly explain why confidence matters for philanthropy, especially for those with altruistic motives for giving.

To Give or Not to Give, That Is the Question: How Methodology Is Destiny in Dutch Giving Data

In research on giving, methodology is destiny. The volume of donations estimated from sample surveys strongly depends on the length of the questionnaire used to measure giving. By comparing two giving surveys from the Netherlands, the authors show that a short questionnaire on giving not only underestimates the volume of giving but also biases the effects of predictors of giving. Specifically, they find that a very short module leads to an underestimation of the effects of predictors of giving on the amount donated but an overestimation of their effects on the probability of charitable giving. Short survey modules may lead researchers to falsely reject or accept hypotheses on determinants of giving due to underreporting of donations.

Social Structure and Personality Assortment Among Married Couples

We study the influence of social structure on assortative mating for personality in a large national sample (n=3616) of married and cohabitating couples in the Netherlands. We find that couples with higher levels of education and from dissimilar religious origins are more similar with regard to prosocial personality characteristics. Because levels of education and religious heterogamy have increased, assortative mating for prosocial personality increases.