Below is a compilation of research efforts currently underway.
University of North Carolina-Charlotte
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SUNY Binghamton University
D. Campbell
The Nature and Extent of Student Philanthropy in Higher Education
In recent years, student philanthropy has proliferated in higher education. Two institutional funders and a cross section of independently supported projects have contributed to this growth. Since 2007, Campus Compact’s “Students4Giving program,” developed in collaboration with the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, has developed programs at 14 institutions of higher education. At the same time, The Sunshine Lady Foundation’s “Learning by Giving” program has funded courses at 16 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Finally, approximately 15 student philanthropy courses have been developed independently, often as a collaboration between a college or university and a local philanthropist or foundation. This research project seeks to improve our understanding of this phenomenon and to provide a foundation for future research.
“Experiential Philanthropy Landscape,” offered at ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action), Fall 2009. (Download a PDF of the PowerPoint presentation.)
To get at this issue, the project considers the following questions:
1. What are the similarities and differences among student philanthropy courses/programs?
a. What are the learning goals of student philanthropy courses/programs?
b. How do the approaches to accomplishing those goals vary?
c. How do courses/programs vary by:
i. Level of education (undergraduate/graduate)
ii. Sponsoring department
iii. Program of study (professional, American Humanics, etc.)
iv. Credit hours
2. How long have courses/programs been in operation?
3. What do we know about the effect of student philanthropy courses on students (in areas such as giving/volunteering behavior, interest in the nonprofit sector/philanthropy, knowledge of the role of philanthropy/nonprofit organizations in civic life, etc.)?
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Long, Boyd, McCarter, and Thomas
Drs. Long, Boyd, McCarter, and Thomas, faculty members in the Department of Social Work, have been analyzing feedback from MSW students who participated in a 2009 philanthropic effort entitled Community Change and Action Network for Non-profit Organizations (CCANN), developed through the Students4giving initiative, funded by Campus Compact and the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund. At the completion of the 2008-2009 academic year, MSW students were provided with a questionnaire designed to elicit thoughts about involvement and learning in the CCANN Project and the grant-making experience. Of the MSW students enrolled in the three sections of the organizations and community practice class, 43 of 48 (90%) completed the survey. The sample was 86% female with 33% of respondents identifying themselves as African American, Asian American, or Hispanic. While the mean age of the sample was 30, the majority of respondents (60%) were from 22 to 26 years old.
Quantitative items
Using a five point scale (low=1, medium=3, and high=5) students rated their “ability to use needs assessments to identify community needs before this academic year.” A subsequent item using the same content and scaling prompted a rating for this ability substituting “after this academic year” in place of “before this academic year.” Similarly, students rated their knowledge concerning grant writing, grant-making processes (e.g., request for proposals, evaluating grant proposals, decision making), fund-raising efforts, and public relations both “before” and “after” the organizations and community practice class. Two final quantitative items queried students concerning “professional interest toward participation in efforts to secure monies (e.g., grant writing, fund raising) for social programs and services” for before and after the organizations and community practice class.
Qualitative items
A common goal in exploratory research involves acquiring “information about what individuals may want, feel, or believe at a given time” (Yegidis & Weinbach, 2006, p. 117). Hence, students were asked to provide feedback with regard to “how your learning in this course has been enhanced through this course-based philanthropy experience emphasizing community engagement,” “how was the experiential nature of the CCANN project an advantage over traditional information sharing or ‘step by step’ approaches imparting information about grant writing and fund raising,” “potential challenges for sustaining the CCANN project,” and “what changes would make the CCANN project more successful.”
Faculty members are in the process of gathering results and hope to have a manuscript completed and ready for review by the end of the calendar year.
Yegidis, B.L., & Weinbach, R.W. (2006). Research methods for social workers. Boston: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.
Brandeis University
SILLERMAN CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PHILANTHROPY
Research Summary: Experiential Philanthropy Course Impact and Outcomes
The Sillerman Center is interested in systematically and thoroughly assessing the intention of experiential philanthropy courses, and the outcomes for a wide range of stakeholders. The proposed research is complementary to the research of colleagues and other members of our working group. We have developed a systematic literature review that covers a large array of topics because there is little written specifically about experiential courses in philanthropy. We believe that experiential philanthropy courses are shaped by the goals of the funders, the instructors, the students, and the university. We believe that the courses can influence the students in the areas of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior, and that course impacts can be felt by the universities and the communities in which they exist.
Research Questions:
RQ #1: What are the goals of the funders in funding and establishing experiential philanthropy courses?
RQ #2: What are the goals of the instructors in developing their experiential philanthropy course curriculum?
RQ #3: What outcomes do funders expect to see from experiential philanthropy courses for themselves, the students, the universities, and the community?
RQ #4: What outcomes do the instructors see and expect long term for their students, the university, and the community?
RQ #5: What are student goals for taking experiential philanthropy courses?
RQ #6: How do experiential philanthropy courses change the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors of the students who take them?
RQ #7: What impact do experiential philanthropy courses have on the universities in which they are held?
RQ #8: How do experiential philanthropy courses impact community stakeholders, the grantees, and the other nonprofits who come into contact with students or the course?
Methodology:
Phase 1: The first phase will include in-depth qualitative interviews with the funders and instructors of existing experiential philanthropy courses. This will complement research being done currently to analyze the content of syllabi of existing courses. Funders will be interviewed either over the phone or in person. The interviews will address RQ #1 and RQ #3. A handful of pilot interviews will be completed with instructors of experiential philanthropy courses to refine concepts for a survey. The survey will be developed and administered to all identified instructors of experiential philanthropy courses at the university level. The pilot interviews and resulting survey will address RQ #2 and RQ #4. This information will be triangulated with the content analysis of syllabi. The resulting product of Phase 1 will be a paper analyzing the goals of funders and instructors for experiential philanthropy courses and the expected outcomes from the courses according to the two groups of sources.
Phase 2: The second phase of this research will collect data from three different sources: students, university stakeholders, and community member affected by the experiential philanthropy courses. This phase will depend on the results of the first phase. Depending on funding and capacity, a few different scenarios have been developed for this phase of the research. To address RQ #5 and RQ #6, students from existing experiential philanthropy courses will be surveyed. The extent of this sample will depend on the willingness of instructors and students to participate and the cost of data collection. Ideally a pre/post survey would be administered. The survey will cover basic demographic information about students, their past experiences or baseline knowledge of philanthropy. It will probe what students’ goals were in participating in the course. It will then address student knowledge of philanthropy and civil society, what difficult skills such as grant writing or reading budgets the students acquired, how student attitudes have changed, and what behavioral shifts have occurred. Phase 2 is also intended to better understand some of the unintended impacts resulting from experiential philanthropy courses. One area in which we expect impact is within the university itself, including administration, department heads, development offices, and public relations offices. We also expect that there will be outcomes for community stakeholders who have been in contact with students as a result of the course or even the idea of it. This portion of Phase 2 may require a case-study type methodology to understand and gain access to all stakeholders.
Boston College
CENTER FOR WEALTH AND PHILANTHROPY
Paolitto and Sawyer
Determining the Impact of Experiential Philanthropy Courses on Female Undergraduates
This research project will measure the impact of experiential philanthropy courses on the learning outcomes of female undergraduates. This trend in philanthropic education at the college level, with substantial financial support from individual and corporate donors, is rapidly growing across the country. Students in the courses apply their academic skills, knowledge, and values by distributing $10,000 in real dollars to nonprofits in their local communities. This study, in tandem with service-learning research and theory, proposes that effective learning results from a cycle of academic study, direct work in the community, reflection, and engagement with both intellectual materials and the real world. This project is among the first of its kind to gather and evaluate evidence of the impact on students of this promising approach to philanthropy education.
Specifically, the project will evaluate the intellectual growth and personal efficacy of approximately 40 female undergraduates. Evidence of growth and change will be based on questionnaires, classroom observations, personal interviews, and analysis of student writing. This research will be one of several important first steps in ascertaining best practices in the education of the next generation of female philanthropic leaders.
Northern Kentucky University
Danielle McDonald and Julie Cencula Olberding
A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Impacts of Experiential Philanthropy on Students, Northern Kentucky University
There is a growing body of literature on various models of student philanthropy their impacts on students. This study is the first one to examine these impacts using a quasi-experimental research design with a control group and a pre-test and post-test. It is designed to isolate as much as possible the impact of the philanthropy experience on students’ awareness, beliefs and intentions by controlling for other factors, such as maturation and history. The study focuses on the incorporation of student philanthropy into a course called “Race, Gender and the Law” (JUS 231) at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). A professor at NKU taught two sections of JUS 231, both in the Fall 2009 semester and the Spring 2010 semester. In one section each semester, students participated in a philanthropy project (the experimental group); they researched nonprofit organizations that address problems such as domestic violence and child abuse, wrote about these nonprofits, discussed and debated them in class, and ultimately selected those in which to invest funds. In addition, this same professor taught another section of JUS 231 – both in Fall 2009 and Spring 2010 – for which students did not participate in a philanthropy project (the control group); however, they had the same readings, lectures and tests as the students in the experimental group. The research design involves administering a survey to students in all four sections of JUS 231, both at the beginning of the semester (pre-test) and the end of the semester (post-test). The survey includes items that are designed to measure students’ awareness of social problems and nonprofit organizations in the community, their beliefs that they have a responsibility to help others in need and that they can make a difference in the world, and their intention to do volunteer work and give money to charity. This study will analyze change scores – from the beginning of the semester to the end of the semester – of the students who participated in experiential philanthropy and compare them to change scores of the students who did not participate in it. In all, this study will analyze responses from about 160 students – 80 in the experimental group and 80 in the control group.
