It is one of the most fundamental questions in the field of philanthropic studies: why do people give? Hundreds of studies have been published containing answers to this question. It turns out that these studies can be categorized into eight groups of mechanisms: ‘ levers’ or ‘buttons’ that can be used by fundraisers and policy makers to influence the level of philanthropy.

In the Giving in the Netherlands Survey 2007, conducted by the Center for Philanthropic Studies at VU University Amsterdam, a random sample of the Dutch population (n=1,474) answered the following question.

Can companies improve their financial performance and competitive situation through corporate philanthropy (CP) as an innovative business strategy? With my VU colleagues Dick de Gilder and Theo Schuyt and my colleague Sarah Borgloh at the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim we will answer this question in a new research project.

The total value of donations to nonprofit organizations in the Netherlandshas increased to €4.7 billion in 2009. Despite the economic crisis, household giving stabilized at €1.9 billion and corporate giving increased to 1.7 billion. The figures were published today by the Center for Philanthropic Studies at VU University Amsterdam.

How much money is donated to nonprofit organizations in Europe? What’s the most generous country in the world? Very simple and interesting questions indeed. A radio listener commenting on our new estimates of the total amount donated by households in the Netherlands asked them. You would expect that there are data available answer them. But it turns out that there are no good answers to these questions.

A question by a student this week prompted my curiosity: where’s the address list of all registered charities in the Netherlands? The website of Netherlands tax authorities (“Belastingdienst”) provides a list of all names of registered charities, a registration number, the place where they are registered, and a URL for the organization. The list is available as a compressed (.zip) .xml file which you can import in Excel.

Using new survey data from the Netherlands, we find that non-immigrants are more likely to volunteer for secular organisations than guest worker immigrants and postcolonial citizen immigrants. In contrast, non-immigrants are less likely to engage in religious volunteering than both immigrant groups.

A modest cheer in the office today: a first version of the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey User Manual is now online.

In an article published last year in the International Journal for Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing I showed that incidental similarities between donors and solicitors promote giving. Alumni of Utrecht University who were solicited for donations in a phonaton were more likely to donate when their names matched the names of solicitors and the university.

Does volunteering promote trust? One would expect volunteers to be more trusting than non-volunteers. And indeed they are. But does a change in volunteering bring about a change in trust? It appears they do not. An analysis of data from the Giving in the Netherlands Panel Survey shows that people who are more trusting are more likely to start volunteering. But becoming a volunteer does not make them more trusting.