Nauwkeurigheid van gerapporteerde giften aan goededoelenorganisaties

Researchers routinely use self-report surveys as sources of data on social phenomena. In the present paper I examine the accuracy of self-reports on charitable donations. I provide a theoretical framework for research on the accuracy of social phenomena and apply this to charitable donations. In the empirical part of the paper, I compare self-reports on household donations to Greenpeace the Netherlands and administrative records on donations received from these households. I find considerable bias in self-reports. Substantial proportions of respondents fail to report donations that have in fact been received by charitable organizations. An almost equal proportion of respondents report donations that have not been received. Among true positives, the amounts reported are somewhat higher than the amounts recorded. As a result, the average bias is close to zero. The accuracy of self-reports is lower among the elderly and among dual earner households. These findings can be explained as a result of memory problems and a lack of information. The accuracy of self-reports is higher among respondents who also report other socially desirable behaviors such as voting and blood donation. These findings suggest that the more civic-minded individuals are more accurate respondents

Values of philanthropy

What are the values of philanthropy? What is the value of philanthropy in monetary terms, and for society? How does philanthropy affect people’s lives? In this lecture, I present recent and new research on philanthropy, describing its current state, historical trends in the development of philanthropy, and its antecedents and consequences

The philanthropy scale: a sociological perspective in measuring new forms of pro social behaviour

Philanthropy re-appears on the public stage. It has become part again of daily life in most industrialized countries. Growing wealth, uneven distributed, evokes the philanthropic response. The media attention for donors as Gates and Buffet may proof this. But also the plea for a “civil society” in Western European welfare states and the founding of the Volunteering and Charitable Giving Unit in the P.M. Cabinet in the UK (2005) show a shift from state responsibility into the direction of “market” and “philanthropy”. The European Commission launched December 2007 the “European Forum on Philanthropy and Research Funding”. Giving Campaigns have been started in France and the UK , the release of Clinton’s book Giving (2007), the fast growth of community foundations and family foundations (Gouwenberg et al 2007), these facts and actions all show a strong and renewed appearance of philanthropy in industrialized economies. Scholars follow and rediscover philanthropy as an interesting domain of research (Bekkers and Wiepking 2007). They stem from different academic disciplines and cover a wide range and different aspects of the phenomenon. Psychologists, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, all strive to discover the underlying incentives, facilitators and motivators of philanthropic behavior. These developments at the academia side as well as at the philanthropic practice, amplify each other. A first question emerges “how may the appearance of a new kind of philanthropy be explained?” and “how may this new kind of philanthropy be defined?” [...]