SPEAKER_00 0:12

You're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast with Rodri Davis. Hello, you're listening to the Philanthropisms Podcast. This is the podcast where we try to put philanthropy in context. I'm your host, Rodri Davis, and this is the fourteenth in our partnership series with the European Research Network on Philanthropy, or ERNOP, where I talk to academics from around Europe whose work has been featured in the latest release of Earnop Research Notes, which are their practitioner-focused summaries of academic papers. And this month I had uh three more great sets of guests. So I spoke to Marlena Valk from the University of Freiburg about her paper Not All Wine and Roses, Nonprofit Consulting as Nonprofit Sector Adjacent Work, which is published with Amanda Stewart and Kerry Quenzi. And that's all about it's really interesting looking at the role of non-profit consultants, which is a I feel a kind of growing part of the sector and how we should understand the nature of that kind of work. Then I talked to Tina De Bock and Tina Fazer for both from KU Lehren, who, like Marlene Valk, are previous guests on the podcast. So it's great to have them back. This time talking about a paper they've written called Charity Checkouts, the potential downsides for customers, nonprofits, and businesses involved. So as the name suggests, looking at sort of round up to the pound uh initiatives or whatever the rhyming would be for a euro or a dollar, but those things where you go into a shop and in various forms get asked if you would like to make a donation to a charity of some sort or another, looking at some of the potential issues that can be identified in the literature that might mean that these things are not quite the sort of win-win-win uh that they're often presented as. And then last but not least, uh I spoke to Silky Burnig from the University of Hamburg and uh Laura Hess from Bauhaus University Weimar uh about a paper that they published called Unpacking the Non-Donor Segment, Reasons for Non-Support and Five Attitudinal Clusters Based on Data from the German Donation Monitor. Um and I should say that was co-authored with Amelia Knaus, uh, Carolyn Saltzmann and Tom Neukirchen. And this one addresses that really interesting question, I guess, for practitioners, particularly fundraisers, around why it is that people don't donate and whether we can understand some of those motivations and sort of segment people so that we don't see them as a homogenous mass, and that can kind of help understand whether it's worth trying to approach those people, and if so, how we can do it. Um, so uh before we get into the uh interviews, I should just say a little bit of housekeeping just so that people know. Um this will be the last episode before a little break over the summer. I tend to do that with the podcast just so it gives me a bit of time to go on holiday and also kind of recuperate. Um, I've got a load of interviews uh either ordered in the can or set up for September, so it's gonna be really exciting, I think. Uh, some really great ones that I'm looking forward to sharing with you. Um, the other thing that I'm just gonna take the opportunity to say, uh, particularly fitting given that this is uh a research notes episode where I'm speaking to academics, but uh as some of you might have seen on LinkedIn, if you follow me on there, uh one thing that happened in the last week was that I actually successfully defended uh a PhD thesis in a Viva. So uh when I do these things in future, once I've made some minor corrections and had them accepted, uh, I will also be able to call myself Dr. Davis, although I won't actually do that. Um, but that's very exciting, so I thought I would share that with you. Right, uh self-aggrandisement over. Uh, let's get on with the rest of the episode, and I'll be back at the end for the usual little bit of housekeeping and updates. Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Marlena Valk from the University of Freiburg. Hi there, Marlena.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Hi, good to see and hear you.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, good to have you back on the podcast because obviously you've been on before to talk about some work that you've had featured uh in a previous Earn OP Research Note uh series. And this time we're here to talk about a paper that you've co-authored with Amanda Stewart and Kerry Quenzi, um titled Not All Wine and Roses: Nonprofit Consulting as Nonprofit Sector Adjacent Work, um, which I was fascinated when I saw the title, because I'm kind of you know slightly in the work of nonprofit consulting of a kind myself. So I was really um kind of interested to see what sort of insights were in there. So maybe the best place to start is if you can tell everybody a bit about what the paper's all about, how it came about, and what some of the key findings are.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so this is, as you said, joint work with uh Mandy and Carrie. And so we've been studying for the last like 10, 11 years um why folks um um enter work in the nonprofit context. We've mostly done that on nonprofit alumni. Those are people who graduate from nonprofit management degrees. Um, and then this, you know, sometimes it's serendipitous how research questions come about. So this project came about because we were really interested how is a nonprofit management degree perceived by recruiters? So it was more like that angle that we took. And so that's why we um initially just had a brief survey of um executive recruiters. So those are uh part of the nonprofit consulting uh group that are focusing on hiring executive leaders. And so we were surveying those. And um as part of the result of this survey, we found that 98% of all firms engaged in nonprofit consulting, and in our specific case in recruitment, were actually for-profit firms. And that really sparked our interest. We're like, what is this group of organizations that has is is you know predominantly for-profit? How do they influence our sector? And so this is kind of like how we got started with this particular paper. So that was a pilot study, and then we engaged in two different um kind of like methods for this particular project. So we used job boards um to kind of like map how, and I can dive in a little bit later, but to map how many of the searches that we how many of the job jobs that are posted are actually done by executive recruiters. Um, and then we also interviewed a um group of recruiters to kind of learn a little bit about how they are, uh who they are, and then um how they entered this line of work. So that's kind of like the overall pitch, and I'm I'm pretty sure you have more questions for me to dive deeper.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and I guess, yeah, the the there's a kind of focus within the paper on uh executive search and recruitment um as a particular form of sort of consultancy work, but I think it you know it kind of goes a bit more broadly than that. Um I mean, some of the things that kind of occurred to me as I was reading it, you mentioned in the paper that there seems to be a trend towards nonprofits increasingly using the services of consultants. Whether you had a sense of what was driving that and why is it that nonprofits are increasingly looking to, as you say, for-profit consultancy firms to provide them with various different functions?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, and we see some push and some pull factors. And then some of this is also kind of like anecdotal, what we've been hearing after we publish this work. But um we do see some funders are requiring nonprofits to actually have recruit uh to have um consultants um to kind of like support capacity building, right? So it could be that as a nonprofit, if you apply for third-party funding, part of this funding is actually meant to hire someone who is doing your evaluation or maybe help you with other parts of your organizational development is part of the grant. So it's a stipulation. Um, we don't have clear numbers, uh, and that's some of the curiosity that we have that we want to, you know, study in the future. But a second trend is also that organizations don't have capacity to do everything themselves, right? So most of the nonprofits are small. And so engaging in a strategic planning process, which you know is one area of consulting work that we see emerging a lot, is nonprofits can't do that by themselves, right? So they they hire um consultants to basically help them with a particular work task that they have to do or want to do, um, but they can't do themselves. So those are kind of like some of the factors that we've noticed while we engaged in this work.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And I was wondering as well whether, as you say, with something like strategic planning, it sort of strikes me that there maybe that would always benefit from being positioned as a consultancy function because it it's not the sort of thing many organizations have in-house because you only do it on a kind of relatively kind of infrequent cycle. But but are there other aspects of consultancy work within nonprofits where it looks more like uh kind of things that could be done in-house are increasingly being outsourced to consultants? And is that sort of reflective of there being skills gaps within the nonprofit sector itself?

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Yeah, so great question, very hard to answer because we've been wrecking our brains in how to study this better, but you know, we've we've tried to kind of like access the 990s to see if there's any indication of how much money is actually spent on consulting work across all the areas you mentioned. But it's very hard to pin down because there's no line item that says consulting, right? So um, so it I can't really answer your question. It's more like anecdotal when we talk to uh both consultants as well as nonprofit leaders that we that we hear, you know, some of those push and pull factors that I mentioned before. But unfortunately, we don't have good data. And so we are still, you know, that's why, as you said on the paper, we have tiny databases that we try to pull together to just start this line of work because there's not much written about consulting, even though we all know, and I mean you mentioned it earlier, uh, that you're dabbling in this field too, that there is there is um, you know, a huge increase in in folks actually offering their services from like solo practitioners um all the way to big firms who are um specializing in this uh in this field. And our interest also got sparked by an article by Jim Rendon, who basically also said, you know, there is an exodus of nonprofit workers into consulting. And this is also um what we've seen in our qualitative um data that all of the interviewees that we have actually said they had nonprofit work experience. And so there seems to be some lore into this consulting field that's also very interesting for us to learn more about. Um, but yeah, as you see me talk, so the issue or the questions that we have, we try to answer, but there's still many more, is on different levels, right? So we have some organizational level questions like why do organizations hire consultants, right? Well, we do also have some sector level questions like how, like, how big is this industry? We don't know, right? It's very hard to estimate. Uh, and how does that industry impact nonprofits, especially since it's so heavily, you know, for profit in their legal incorporations?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, absolutely. And as you say, there's also the individual level as well as organizations making use of consultants, the fact that an increasing number of people who've previously worked in nonprofits are becoming consultants. And I know in the paper you do touch on what some of the potential drivers for that might be. I don't know if you can say a bit about kind of even anecdotally what you found in terms of why it is people might find it appealing to set up as a consultant.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

So it's it's very interesting. A few years ago, I did visit my colleague Mandy Stewart at NC State, and um, there was a meeting of local nonprofit organizations, and there were some consultants in the room too. And so one person said, and this really sparked this research too, that uh the person said, with with nonprofit consulting, you can still do good while also making money, lots of money. And so we are really curious because you know, when we read the and we all dabbled in the literature, right? When it that what people motivates to work for nonprofits is really this doing good motive, right? Like fulfilling their values, having an impact. But here seems to be a group of folks who also want to do this, but but on top of it, there is this very clear um extrinsic focus on making a good living, right? And so this was really interesting for us to understand more about this group of uh of people. And we do identify certain what we call like pathways into consulting. And so there's definitely this group that seeks meaningful work, but not necessarily in what we traditionally understand as nonprofit organizations, right? So we had a person who was in banking uh before, or and another person who wasn't in law before, and then said, I wanted to do something good, but I didn't feel fulfilled in my previous line of work. That's why I moved into consulting. And so this really purposeful engagement with, you know, helping nonprofits to be better was one of the ways. And then we had a like a serendipitous path where folks just ended up in this line of work, um, where you know they was, they were asked by folks they worked with, hey, you have the skill sets, do you want to try this out? Um, that was really interesting. And in one of the interviewees, um, she said, you know, no one goes to college to become a nonprofit consultant. So no one, this is not like a profession or a vocation you select into. It's just like happening. And so that that was one of the paths. And then a really strong one was this need or want to be more flexible and autonomous in your work. And we saw this across um older workers who kind of like retired from the nonprofit sector as CEOs or executive directors, who then said, Hey, I want to still use my skills and but don't want to have a full-time role. But we also saw this with like working moms who said, you know, I do have school pickups. So I need a I need a work arrangement that can actually help me um, you know, be more flexible and combine work with um family life. And so um, so that path was very strong too. And then, yeah, so the fourth path that was not as pronounced but still there and interesting was what we called a graduating path, where uh basically um folks had the feeling they are ready for this, and so they were prepared by their previous work experience um within the nonprofit sector to now kind of like look at many organ or help many organizations, not just the one they were employed with. Um so that's kind of like the the gist of our findings there.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

No, and really and really makes sense. And I guess from the point of view of what nonprofits themselves kind of do with some of these findings or the questions they raise, I was sort of interested in, you know, if there is a sense that there's an exodus of talent from the nonprofit sector into consulting or there's a sort of lure of it, is that just something that nonprofits themselves need to accept? Or are there things that they can do to address some of those drivers, you know, for instance, paying more or allowing people more flexibility in terms of work patterns?

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, I mean, you know, for small organizations, I don't I don't think they necessarily know why people leave, right? But if you were to find out, like with exit interviews, why does a person want to leave? Um, you know, or maybe even before they leave, you know, during like appraisal or like, you know, those yearly meetings where they have with your supervisor, what are goals, what's working well, what what's not working well, where do you want to develop? And then that that might give you a better idea of what a person wants from a role within your organization. But uh, I think on a on a scale, on a larger scale, we just don't know why people leave, right? Because those types of conversations are maybe not having had. And if and if if if organizations have those conversations, maybe, you know, obviously we're not part of this, right? So it's it's really hard to get a handle on the on kind of like the broad scale evidence here. Um, again, with the small sample we have and some of the anecdotal um conversations we've had with we've had with folks, we actually do we are a little concerned, especially since smaller organizations they can't just pay more, right? So I mean that'd be awesome if that worked, but uh that's just not the reality of the sector, neither in the US nor in other countries. And so um, but I do think a lever maybe the the wish for more flexibility, right, and autonomy. And I think that's something organizations can actually do with low costs, right? So if if you as a as a you know executive director know of your employees that that's a wish they have, so maybe that's something you can work with. Uh, because paying more is obviously harder than making those changes.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

And the other thing I just wanted to ask was um do you did you get any sense or have you kind of had in any conversations a sense that uh what the perception of nonprofits about consulting work that they've engaged is? I mean, what what I'm sort of guessing at is like, is it that they feel as though it's just uh a necessity that they've had to pay for it either because that was the only place that they could get that particular service or that's just where the market was? Or do they see value in something being delivered on a consultancy basis? For instance, you know, I was thinking actually, if you're asking somebody to help you with a strategy review, does the fact that they are independent and perhaps potentially able to offer more challenge, is that itself of value, or is it just that you don't have the capacity internally to do it?

SPEAKER_01 18:09

No, I think it's definitely of value. So um that was an unrelated research project, but um findings from a project I was engaged in, they were the organization was actually um writing a call, and consultants could apply to help an organization with a strategic planning project, uh, because it's they've never done it before and it was new to them and they didn't have the capacity nor the skills to do it. But then the the result was also, you know, if you have someone that's outside, look at your organization that really can help you find the blind spots, right? Because most often, obviously, you won't see them, but if you have someone who's coming from the outside, it may help you with um with you know, like improvement um in areas that you may not be aware of. And so generally, I think organizations value um working with consultants. Um but that's the only like I will say that was from a different research project. But the next thing that Mandy, Carrie, and I want to do is also to survey organizations to learn a bit a little bit more about this aspect because we've, you know, we talk to consultants, we serve with consultants. So we've done that, we we know a little bit more about that angle, but we've not really um spoken to nonprofits quite yet. So that's next on the list. So stay stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah, well, that was good to be my question, was because there's a lot lots of different angles, as you've already said, within this particular piece of research that sort of show avenues for more research. If that's one, are there other angles that you want to pick up on as well in terms of some of the questions that that are still open?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, no, for sure. And what we what we were struck by, and this is something that we may actually not get to study, is like how closed or proprietary the business of consulting is, because we've done the job boards analysis analysis and we found only 10 out of 108 um postings were actually through consulting firms. And then we've done some follow-up uh research and actually looked at uh 15 really big consulting firms in the nonprofit space and looked, are they actually listing publicly? Only if a small share actually does list jobs publicly. So that means you know it's more like the headhunter type research where an organization actually is hiring you to fill the next role, but it's not an open source. So lots of those practices, our roles are filled, we don't know quite yet. And so that's something that obviously is interesting for for us to study. But the question is, will we be able to? Because a lot of obviously is proprietary, as I mentioned. Um, so that was something that that's that's interesting to us. I think something we we could do and we are engaged in is developing some sort of typology to understand what types of consulting firms we have. You know, there is obviously they vary in size, but they also they vary in scope. And then some of them consult exclusively for nonprofits, and then others have a broader portfolio for public and for-profit organizations as well. And so we are currently working on kind of like getting our brains wrapped around what types of organizations in the consulting space we have, and then hoping that from there we can um kind of like dive deeper in some of the differences between between those types. Um but that's in the works right now.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

No, it would be really interesting because as you say, it is quite an opaque world, but increasingly I think one that people are aware has an enormous amount of influence. Um, certainly as you know, at a kind of higher level, some funders, foundations, and donors are kind of using consultants essentially to do their due diligence and research and some of their grant making functions. So um yeah, be really, really interested. Great to hear about the the paper, Marlena. Thanks ever so much for coming on the podcast to talk about it. Um yeah, really look forward to seeing uh where you take the the research next. And all the best in the future.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yep. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Tina DeBock and Tina Faser. Hi to both of you.

SPEAKER_05 22:17

Hello. Hi there.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Hi there. Great. Well, good to have you on as returning guests, actually, because you've previously featured on one of these note uh episodes with uh a previous bit of uh work um that was featured in the series. Um and this time we're talking about a paper uh entitled Charity Checkouts, uh Potential Downsides for Customers, Nonprofits, and Businesses Involved, which I was really interested when I saw the title, because this is a topic I haven't seen a lot of work on, but it's one that kind of raises a lot of questions in the sector. Um so maybe the best place is just for you to explain to people, you know, what charity checkouts are, what the research is all about, and what some of the key findings are.

SPEAKER_03 22:53

Uh thanks a lot, Trodi, for giving us the opportunity to talk about our research. Well, maybe it's good to first clarify what we mean with charity checkouts. Um, I think we all encountered it at least once in our personal life. Uh so imagine you go to a supermarket to do some groceries, and then all of a sudden, let's say just before you want to pay for the groceries, you're being asked whether you want to kind of round up your bill and donate the difference to a charity. Well, that's basically what a charity checkout is about. So you're being asked whether you want to add a small amount of money to your bill, and that money goes to charity, and that's basically what charity checkouts are about. You can also call it checkout charity or point of sale donations. So various labels are being used. And maybe I can give you one example. Um, it's it's for instance, a long-standing partnership between Walmart, it's a big retailer, and uh Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Uh in Walmart, you can make uh you can you can shop, you can do groceries, and just before checking out, you can round up your bill. And then the difference is going to, for instance, the pediatric uh medical care of that network. So that's that's an example uh that is well known in the US.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and in terms of I've got lots of questions um just about sort of what we mean. I I guess one before we get into the paper itself is what kinds of different models are there, and how many did you come across for these charity checkouts? Because obviously you've explained there what they are, but even within that, the ones that I've seen, there's a difference between those where it's, for instance, a single charity that's in partnership with a company, or one where there is a group of charities, or where they're ones that are voted for by employees or by customers. So is there a whole range that we're talking about here?

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Yeah, actually, there is um it's it's being operationalized in in several ways. Sometimes the nonprofit organization is mentioned, sometimes some information is provided to customers, but sometimes there is not even a clear name of a nonprofit organization. And the question is just would you like to uh donate to a charity? Uh, but also the way the money is asked, sometimes it's rounding up the bill, but sometimes a fixed amount is asked, a euro, half a euro or dollar. Um, and sometimes people can choose uh what they give. Um, also the the who asks uh the the donation. Sometimes it's be it's the the the cashier who is asking, so it's an in-person ask, but sometimes it's uh done by technology. Also in online shopping, we see it uh more and more. Uh so there are indeed very, very, very different ways in which uh charity checkouts are being operationalized.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

I think one other difference might be opt-in or opt-out. Sometimes it's like the default option, and you really have to kind of unclick, so to speak. Uh, but it can also be opt-in. And that, of course, in itself makes it makes a big difference from a consumer point of view.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, absolutely. It feels like there are there are kind of lots of different variations that might have quite significant impacts on how people respond and how they perceive it. And I guess that brings us into the sort of the the pit the bulk of the paper. What was it that you were looking at in terms of charity checkouts in this paper? And what were you trying to kind of unpick?

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Well, mostly if you read papers on charity checkouts, it's most of the time framed as like the perfect win-win-win, meaning that, like, well, it's an additional source of income for nonprofits. Uh, businesses can demonstrate their CSR value, and customers get this easy way of getting that warm glow. And what struck us was that despite the growing popularity all around the world, also increasingly concerns are being raised. Uh, think about the pressure that you put on customers, for instance. But all of these concerns were like scattered across all kinds of articles and professionally oriented sources, and nobody really brought it all together. So we wanted to focus on potential downsides because if you want to use charity checkouts as a strategic tool, whether that's for CSR or for fundraising, you need to be aware of the risks involved. And we're not saying that it's a bad tool, but you cannot use it strategically if you don't know the downsides. And that's what we wanted to uh get insight uh into.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Yeah, absolutely. And and what did you find in terms of some of the things that you were able to identify? Particularly, it sort of strikes me there might be different potential downsides from the perspective of the consumer or the customer from the employees of a company and the company themselves. Were there kind of different things you identified in each of those cases?

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Yes, there were. So maybe good to know is that uh for this research, we did uh uh a system or a systematic literature review. And we did not only look at the academic literature, but also we did a Google search. So we also looked at the degree literature to see what is being uh said about charity checkouts. And indeed, we found uh quite some uh potential downsides for all three stakeholders, although the customers, the downsides for the customers are most prominent uh in the literature. Um now, of course, it wouldn't lead us too far to give all the downsides for all these stakeholders, but let us maybe give you uh some examples. Uh for customers, for example, one of the most frequently discussed concerns is actually the feeling of social pressure. Customers are often asked to donate in a public setting, uh, for example, why the casher is watching you and other customers are waiting behind you. So as a result, some people feel uncomfortable declining such a request to donate. They feel judged when they say no. And donations may therefore be driven not only by altruism, but actually by a desire to avoid embarrassment or feelings of guilt. And related to that is that some customers also feel that charity checkouts catch them off guard. They are shopping and they are not necessarily planning to donate at that time. And yet suddenly they must decide on the spot, leaving them no room to reflect on the question or to gather information or to evaluate first a nonprofit organization that will receive the donations. So, and and sometimes the organization is not even mentioned by name. So it's yeah, people have to decide on the spot and there is little time to think about it. So that was a very prominent uh downside that we saw emerging in the literature.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Maybe I can give two other examples for the other stakeholders involved because there is the nonprofit involved, there is the business involved. And of course, for nonprofits, uh, what we're looking for in a very competitive environment is to look for long-term relationships with donors. But if you want to build this long-term relationship, you need data, you need insights. And of course, with charity checkouts, it's not clear like who donated, how can I build a relationship? So you're missing that opportunity as a nonprofit organization. And of course, also you're giving lots of control to the business. They are oftentimes deciding how to implement the charity checkout campaign. And that can negatively backlash, that can have a negative impact on your um reputation, for instance. But also for the business or for the company, the retailer involved, there might be um downsides because sometimes, because of the charity checkout campaign, people didn't like the shopping experience. And so therefore, they are less likely to revisit your store. So while it is it has CSR potential, it might also kind of have a drawback uh with respect to uh revisit intentions, for instance. Um so these are two other examples for nonprofits and businesses.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Yeah, maybe maybe uh very relevant uh to conclude is that we did not only find uh separate downsides for all these three stakeholders, but also very relevant to mention is that there is an interconnectedness between these stakeholders. Because the downsides that are experienced by one stakeholder at a given moment can also trigger additional challenges for the other stakeholders. And that can set off a negative causal chain that undermines sometimes the effectiveness of charity checkouts for all the parties involved, and not only in the short term, but also in the long term.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, absolutely. And and I guess the sort of bigger question about these things, I'd be interested if it if this kind of came through in the paper, is often when we talk about things like charity checkouts, as you said at the beginning, it's positioned as a kind of win-win-win because it's an easy way of getting additional donations. But there are always concerns that if the more that you provide these kind of easy or frictionless opportunities to give, it actually kind of eats into the giving that people might otherwise do. Did did you have any sense, certainly from the point of view of customers, that they view any giving they do through charity checkouts as kind of part of the same buckets of money that they might otherwise spend on their own donations and that it has a kind of negative effect on those?

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Yeah, I I think that's a very relevant question. We need a lot of empirical evidence on that, and I think it can go several ways. Of course, if you if you tap it, if you engage in micro-giving, nanophilanthropy, I think they even call it, well, it can basically stress your pro-social identity and it might license you to no longer give or to turn down other requests. That's of course not very interesting for the nonprofit sector as a whole. It can also go the other way. It can kind of trigger you to do more, to do good more frequently, for instance. And I think that that's the academic answer, but it depends. I think it depends on the context and the person that you have in front of you. But for me, and I think I'm very happy that you raised this point, this is one of the most important questions when it comes to microgaving. How is it changing our view on philanthropy? Um, as you know, the whole term of selectivism, like you're being activistic in a kind of let's call it easy, uh slow way. Well, maybe that's part of it. Not sure, question, Mark, but we should definitely do more research on it. Super interesting.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Okay, if we change something in the charity checkout uh operationalization, how do customers uh react? But we also need studies on the long-term impacts of uh of this tool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

And just picking up on that, I think that's one obvious question. I think where there's lots of scope for further research. Were there other things that came up in the course of this paper where you think actually there are there are other interesting questions that you would like to kind of take further in in future research?

SPEAKER_03 33:37

What I personally think is interesting is to just get a better better understanding of how these relationships start. Like if a non-profit and a for-profit start to collaborate, how is this happening? Is this based on gut feeling? Is this part of a strategic approach? Like what's actually going on? And I would like to do more case studies to get a better understanding of the ins and outs of, let's say, the daily practice of charity checkouts. Um, how do they come along? I think that's really interesting. And whether or not there is a kind of imbalance between for-profit and non-profit, um, that would also very much interest me and us, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Now, the the focus is mainly on how the customers react uh uh to charity checkouts, but indeed, indeed, as uh Tina already said, um, it's very important to also look at the reactions and the decision making of uh the businesses and the nonprofits involved.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Yeah, absolutely. I think lots of really interesting avenues to take forward. Um, and certainly I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find the original paper, which is really worth reading, and the the UN Up Research Note that's based on it. Just remain to say thanks ever so much to both of you for finding the time to come on the podcast. Really interesting to hear about this. I think it's a really fascinating area and definitely look forward to to seeing kind of what where you take it in the future. Um so all the best for that.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Thank you for inviting us. It was our pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Okay, great. Well, I'm here with Silkie Bernig and Laura Hess. Hi to both of you.

SPEAKER_04 35:13

Hi, hi.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Hello. Hi there. Well, it's great to have you on the podcast. Um, and we're here to hear about uh a paper that both of you are involved in co-authoring that's been featured in the latest release of Earnot Research Notes. And the paper in question is titled Unpacking the Non-Donor Segment: Reasons for Non-Support and Five Attitudinal Clusters based on data from the German Donation Monitor, which I think tells us a lot about what we're going to be hearing about. Um, and this one definitely caught my eye, and one of the reasons I picked it was I feel like that question about understanding non-donors is one's that one that you hear so much from people kind of working, particularly on the fundraising side. So I was really fascinated to find that you'd kind of dug into this question. And so maybe the best place to start, uh Silky, if you could tell us a bit about what the paper's actually about, uh what the background is and what some of the key findings are.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

Yeah, sure. Uh first of all, thanks for the invitation. So um I think it's also true for us uh researching and teaching about donors a lot. And um, when it comes to the term non-donors, that is a term that is often overlooked. Though non-donors normally, when you talk to nonprofit organizations in practice, in project, they always tell you, yeah, we have, of course, non-donors, but that is a very diverse group and then homogeneous group, we don't know much, or some say we don't know nothing about uh our non-donnors. So we thought that is a really interesting topic. And um, in terms of definition, it's not so easy to answer, to be honest, because some authors see or define, use a very strict definition of non-donors and say a non-donor is really a person who has never ever, so to say, donated um money, time, or blood. So that is a really strict definition. Um, other authors used in behavioral conceptualization and say, okay, we define donors those who are not donated within the last three years or two years or one year. So that was not so easy to uh answer or to start with, and we discussed this um question with our cooperation partner, that is the German Fundraising Association, and they finally uh recommended um to use uh the 12-months uh rule. So um, but that is more or less for practical reasons because um most of the fundraising organizations in Germany use that term as a non-donor period. So uh, but it's discussable. Yeah, so the topic is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

And and Laura, maybe you could tell us a bit about in the paper what it was that you were looking at and some of the things that you found.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

Yeah, sure. So uh the questions we asked was basically well, we wanted to know why people don't give, but we also wanted to know if there are like distinct types of non-donors, just as Silke uh explained to us. And then as you also mentioned, we had this great opportunity to work with the German Fundraising Association, and they invited us to add questions to their annual German donation monitor. So we had the chance to have like a representative survey, and we could, I think we targeted roughly like 2,000 non-donors, so that gave us a good idea about their reasons not to donate. And then we asked them like a long list of possible reasons for not giving. So I think it was almost 30, I think, Silka. Maybe if I'm wrong and you correct me. And um, yeah, there they had to rate how much they agree with the single reasons. And I think the first surprising result was that it was not affordability at the top of the list. I have to say though, it was second. But actually the most agreed reason was actually um about the distrust of overhead. So, like our respondents had the feeling that too much of their donation goes to administration, and that is why they don't donate. I think that's a quite well big problem also. Silka also has a paper on that.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Interesting. Yeah, I saw that that was the number one reason, which I I was fascinated and and depressed by the fact that that people have cited that.

SPEAKER_04 39:41

Yeah, and I also um found it very interesting that um some people said they disliked the direct um fundraising appeal. So that uh comes together with street fundraising, for example, that the the people dislike uh being asked on the street uh um to donate. So that was also uh a top reason.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Um and one of the things I wanted to ask, I want to dig into sort of how you then went on to segment some of those donors and what kind of practitioners could do. But I guess one of the questions always when you are asking people about these things and sort of telling them to explain their own behavior, is that question of how much do we take the reasons that they give at face value and how much do we sort of have to think behind that? I suppose, particularly when you're asking people about why you don't do something like donating, which is generally seen as a sort of socially positive thing. Do you get the sense, you know, what do you make of those findings and how much of a need is there to sort of know that what we're asking about is people's statements about their own behavior, but there might be something else behind it as well that's the genuine explanation?

SPEAKER_05 40:50

Yeah, so I think that's always a good question. And as you mentioned, of course, like people always I mean, they know what the favorable answer would be, but we also found them to be quite honest and were quite honest about like their negative attitudes towards um donating. And I think that also like points to the thing that we did. We did a cluster analysis, so we looked for patterns, and that also allowed us a bit more for interpretation, not only like the reasons we asked, but also their like sociodemographic backgrounds, how they use social media. So we had different things that we could combine and look for patterns in, um, which also then allowed for more like yeah, more interpretation than only the reasons they stated.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

Yeah, I I totally agree. So there's always a bias in these questionnaires and surveys, so you can't avoid that. However, I think the longer the list of possible reasons you give them, you more you you the closer you come to the maybe underlying perspective perspectives of the persons. And for example, for me it was very interesting that we also identified disadvantage or feeling of disadvantages as a reason for non-support. For example, some people said, I also don't get support. So that that is a is a is is really a strong uh statement, or others state um stated the state and not the individual is responsible um to solve so social problems. That is very typical for German for the German sector. I I guess also maybe for the UK. Um, so that is a different um uh social system, but but people think that that others are responsible. And um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:47

Yeah, absolutely. And and you you mentioned there that you also looked at some of the kind of wider demographic factors and behavioral factors and use those to kind of uh cluster and segment people. What were some of the sort of most important factors that you found in determining whether a person was more likely to be a non-donor? Was there a kind of high correlation with any particular factors?

SPEAKER_05 43:10

I mean, I think we have to differentiate here. I mean, we didn't like look for higher correlation of who's like a non-donor, but because we really just looked at the non-donors, but of course they were like different in their intention to donate in the future. And maybe just to go like one step back. So we had like four overarching themes why people don't give. So there was their negative attitude toward giving, perceived financial inability, past experience. Some are even unconscious of being non-donors and whether they were solicitated or not. But then, of course, like you know, coming back to your question, there was of course um sociodemographics like the age and also the income, of course, which are um very important and well, which tell us something about those clusters because we had five different groups of non-donors in the end.

SPEAKER_00 43:58

Yes, I I I thought it was really interesting. You essentially, I'm not not to go into all of them, but ones where, for instance, the group where it's kind of people who are just totally against the idea of donating for whatever reason, as opposed to some where it was more about not having had the opportunity or their economic means, that the will being there, but the means to do so not being there. Um and I guess that leads on to my my a question I wanted to ask, which is how do non-profits sort of use this kind of segmentation in practice? Can it tell them something about where they should focus their efforts if they're trying to engage non-donors?

SPEAKER_04 44:33

Yeah, we hope so that they can use that. So um I think at the end of the paper, we um so try to come up with some recommendations of a good strategy and um maybe to summarize our um our statements. So we think that um segmentation is key. So that um you should really have an idea of what segments, what donor segments, and what non-donor segments um you um are responsible for, so to say, and then to prioritize these segments that you think um that are markable or marketable, uh so to say, that that you can really approach them. And for example, we found that um especially two clusters are interesting. We called them um cluster five, convincible cluster, and um also cluster three. Um can't remember the name. Wait a minute. Um cluster three, indifferent non-donnors, yeah. So, first of all, talking about the indifferent donors, because here it was interesting that they say I can donate, so I'm financially able to donate, but I don't want to, because of the reasons um uh earlier discussed, so that they are um thinking that the state is, for example, uh government should be responsible, or that we should that donating is a totally wrong approach, that we need more social entrepreneurship, for example. And here the cluster and sociodemographics are interesting because that are more or less male men, uh 66%. Um and um they are in a more middle-age range, so around about 40 to 60 years old. In contrast, the um convincible uh cluster uh that is quite younger. Um, so younger, well-educated men, very nice um educational background, and I think here we see some strategies already. So, of course, you can try to segment the younger uh individuals, trying to um yeah um to have them in a journey in a fundraising journey, um try to approach them over a longer period of time, and perhaps then you can build up a relationship with them and um uh finally um you are able to recruit them as first-time donors. Um for yeah, so I stop here.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. Um, and I just wanted to zoom out as well, because you mentioned that on this piece of research you work with the German Fundraising Association, and obviously that was kind of key to be having the access and being able to ask the questions and get the data. I just wondered what your perspective is on the sort of wider question of how well academia and practice links up when it comes to philanthropy, because obviously the point of this Urna Research Note series is to try and build those bridges even more. Has your experience so far been that it's easy to work with practitioners? And do you find that they're interested in and receptive to the kinds of findings that you're publishing?

SPEAKER_04 48:21

So, from my perspective, um that yeah, that's true. We always try to bridge the two um the two areas. Uh, and I think it's very, very easy when you know each other. So, and therefore, here comes Urnup or other players um into the game because um, you know, sometimes you don't know the names, you don't know that there is an academic around that he or she is uh focusing on donor uh let's say um related aspects or fundraising aspects. So um it is important to be readable uh and and um that therefore um podcasts like this or ANUP research notes um and talks are so important so that uh both worlds can learn from each other. But now it's it's very easy from my perspective to get in contact with them, and then they really love to cooperate with uh academia.

SPEAKER_05 49:29

And maybe to add, I think I mean that topic was also very good for for this because academically speaking, it was also a very straightforward question that we ask and a question that resonates with the practitioners right away. But I think sometimes in other projects it's always also hard to translate like the academic theoretical question to the actual practical problem. But I would say, especially like in the cooperations with Circa, we focus very much on real-world problems and then starting building the research around, and that makes it, I think, easier to cooperate than maybe in other projects. I also participated with practitioners where you had to do more translation work until you really knew what like the other party is interested in.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Yes, yeah, and I've heard that from many people that there's often there is a shared interest, but you have to kind of frame it in the right way so that everybody gets that they're they're talking about the same thing. Um, I suppose the other thing I just wanted to ask finally, because obviously a lot of this work, given the nature of academic publishing, is actually the research has been done a while ago and the publications are often a few years ago. Just to ask what both of you are working on now, whether there are other areas of research that build on this work or whether you've kind of taken your work in other directions, I would just be really interested to hear.

SPEAKER_04 50:44

Yeah, so before we share um new research ideas, so um the German uh fundraising association just last week came um with an email asking if we um can of course repeat the another wave of a non-donor study, so and and the German monitor. Um so that is uh uh I think also a good sign. And um, at the moment we are um a little bit on different topics, so maybe Laura will talk a little bit about our uh ongoing top or joint ongoing topic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

Maybe as uh as a little background, because I also finished like my PhD like one and a half years, two years ago now, and then I had to take like a different position at a different university. So my main topic is not as much nonprofit anymore as it was before, but still, of course, uh those topics interest me very much. So we're still doing research well more in the broader field of transformative service research now and on vulnerable groups basically. And um, like one recent research project is about like how large language models react when they like perceive like their users as uh vulnerable and how they adapt their service offering to that. So that's uh one of the newer researches. But Silka, of course, is still doing a lot of uh fundraising research at Art Share.

SPEAKER_04 52:15

Another project we are both uh involved in is on how to integrate um uh females with a refugee background in the labor market. So that is also very interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Um sounds like an amazing range of topics and really fascinating. So I will definitely keep an eye out for those. Um and certainly if you end up doing another iteration of of this research, I think it'll be really interesting once you start having that time series as well. Um, just remains to say thanks ever so much to both of you for coming on the podcast. Really great to hear about uh the research. I'll put links in the show notes to places where people can find the paper and the Earn Up research notes uh that's based on it, and just wish you all the best for the future.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Great. Okay, great. Well, my thanks again to all my guests, uh to Marlena, to Tina, to Tina, uh to Silke, and to Laura. Uh I will put links in the show notes to places where you can find all of those papers that we were talking about, as well as the earn-up research notes uh that were based on them. So please do check those out. Uh, if you're interested in issues around uh philanthropy and civil society more broadly, check out the website at whyphilanthropymatters.com. There's all kinds of interesting bits and pieces on there to get your teeth stuck into over the summer while I'm not putting out any more stuff. Uh, if you've got ideas for people that I could talk to on the podcast or topics you'd like to see us cover, do get in touch. You can find my contact details at the Y Philanthropy Matters website. Uh, always looking for suggestions. Uh, if you've got in touch with me and I haven't got back to you, uh, I do promise that I'd do my best to do that. Um, but I get an increasing number uh of approaches about the podcast, which is a very nice problem to have. And also, as previously discussed, um, I have too much on my plate, including until relatively recently trying to do a pod uh PhD alongside two jobs and possibly three jobs. Uh, so it's not that I am ignoring you, it's just that I'm a little bit overwhelmed at times. Uh, but do keep on getting in touch, please. Um, that being said. You can also follow me on social media. Best place these days is LinkedIn, or you can check me out on Blue Sky if you want to hear largely silence, punctuated by the occasional message. But on LinkedIn I'm relatively active. Uh, also, you can sign up for the uh newsletter through the Why Philanthropy Matters uh website. That's a kind of monthly update with some views and insight about all kinds of interesting things that are going on across the world of philanthropy and civil society. Other than that, it just remains to say thanks ever so much for listening. If you like the podcast, please do leave us a nice review wherever you get your podcast. That would be very pleasant. Uh, if you think that there are people who might benefit from listening or even actively enjoy it, please do uh tell them and spread the good word. Um, I think personal recommendation always helps. But yeah, in the meantime, have a good summer. I will be back in September with lots more great interviews and possibly hopefully also some deep dives because I'd like to get back to doing a few of those. Uh, and I will see you next time. Bye.