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Nudging Charitable Giving: When and how to use nudging techniques to increase charity donations

Rebecca C. Ruehle*, Bart Engelen**, Alfred Archer**

*Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, **Tilburg University

It is Monday morning and you are rushing down a busy shopping street to get to work. Suddenly you are stopped by a friendly woman who asks you: “Excuse me, do you care about children that urgently need your help?”

Usually, if you see volunteers from charities and non-profit organizations approaching others on the street, you choose a different route. But they managed to catch you this time around. While you sympathize and see the good their organization is doing, you also think fundraisers are kind of annoying, intrusive and, quite often, even manipulative. They use all kinds of tricks to get you to donate and to give more than you otherwise would have done. They appeal to your emotions, tell you how much other people give, and steer you to a monthly donation instead of a one-off donation.

These behavioral influencing techniques, also called ‘nudges’, are not only used in street fundraising, but also in advertisements and online. You wonder: is messing with people’s decision-making processes to increase their donations permissible or even a good thing, or is it wrong and should charities refrain from doing it?

To answer this question, it is important to consider two things.

New NVSQ Data Transparency Policy for Results Based on Experiments

Transparency is a key condition for robust and reliable knowledge, and the advancement of scholarship over time. In order to improve the transparency of research published in NVSQ, the journal is introducing a policy requiring authors of manuscripts reporting on data from experiments to provide, upon submission, access to the data and the code that produced the results reported. This will be a condition for the manuscript to proceed through the blind peer review process.

The policy will be implemented as a pilot for papers reporting results of experiments only. For manuscripts reporting on other types of data, the submission guidelines will not be changed at this time. Continue reading “New NVSQ Data Transparency Policy for Results Based on Experiments”

“When Nonprofits Meet COVID-19” – Call for Papers for NVSQ Symposium

Chao Guo, Angela Bies and Susan Phillips – NVSQ Editors-in-Chief

The novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has brought a global health crisis that is having a profound impact on all of us on this planet. As the world scrambles to respond to this pandemic, the nonprofit and voluntary sectors across countries and regions are joining forces with government, businesses, and individuals to protect their communities. In the meantime, many organizations in the sector are facing tremendous financial challenges as they continue to serve the most vulnerable populations in these difficult times. In the midst of this, nonprofits have also needed to consider ways to protect and respond to staff and volunteer vulnerabilities.

This symposium aims at sharing insights, experiences, and observations from nonprofit scholars and practitioners regarding how the nonprofit and voluntary sectors worldwide are responding to this pandemic. This call for proposals is quite open thematically: manuscripts can address individual, managerial, organizational, cross-sectoral, and policy responses, and address any nonprofit field or national context. Of particular interest are manuscripts that hold implications for the nonprofit studies literature and practice/policy, and especially future research. Authors are encouraged to submit their high-quality short articles (3,000 words or less, inclusive of references) that address the theme of this symposium issue.

Authors should follow the NVSQ manuscript submission guidelines and submit to the manuscript submission portal, selecting as article type “COVID-19”. We ask that you indicate prominently in your cover letter that your manuscript is related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Editors-in-Chief will follow our usual procedures and conduct a quick initial review of submissions to assure a fit with the theme of the symposium and with the type of articles published in this journal.

Those manuscripts selected for further consideration will be peer reviewed and fast-tracked for publication if accepted. We will strive to make the initial review within one week of completed submission, and those that survive the initial screening will go through an expedited peer review process. Authors will be expected to revise manuscript promptly, and editors will make the final decision within four weeks of submission.

Accepted articles will be posted online within a short time frame and prioritized for publication in our December issue.

Important Dates:
Deadline of Manuscript Submission: July 15, 2020
First Decision: July 29, 2020
Revisions submitted by: August 24, 2020
Final Decision: August 31, 2020
Publication Date: December 2020.

“Do you have a Voucher”? Food Banks and COVID-19

person holding orange citrus fruit — Photo by Solomon Abramov on Pexels.com

Kelli Kennedy, University of York, UK.

“Do you have a voucher?” is one of the first questions asked to food bank users. I should know; as a volunteer at the Waterloo Oasis Foodbank in London I’ve asked the question countless times over a tea or coffee to someone seeking help. In light of the current COVID pandemic, more people will request vouchers, and unfortunately, many will not receive them.

UK Hunger and Food Insecurity in COVID-19

New research from a YouGov poll by The Food Foundation and the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (FFCC) revealed that more than 3 million people (6%) in Great Britain have gone hungry since the UK lockdown began in late March. The survey assessed household food (in)security through the following questions:

Thinking about since the UK went into official lockdown (i.e. since March 23^rd), did you/anyone else in your household:

Have smaller meals than usual or skip meals because you couldn’t afford or get access to food?
Ever been hungry but not eaten because you couldn’t afford or get access to food?
Not eaten for a whole day because you couldn’t afford or get access to food?

If the answer was yes to any question, the person is deemed food insecure. The most impacted groups include adults with disabilities, adults with children, and those identifying as BAME, according to a preliminary analysis of survey data by Rachel Loopstra of King’s College. With people falling into hunger and food insecurity, many look for help to put food on the table, including the use of food banks. Continue reading ““Do you have a Voucher”? Food Banks and COVID-19”