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Diaspora Philanthropy - Understanding the Charitable Giving Behavior of Nepalese Living Abroad

Thu, July 18, 3:35 to 4:25pm, TBA

Abstract

The scholarship on charitable giving is rich and multidisciplinary (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011). Since philanthropy studies’ emergence as a novel field in the social sciences (Katz, 1999), researchers have tried to understand the scope of charitable giving, giving patterns, factors, and motives affecting giving, and other related issues that continue to contribute towards the understanding of who gives, how and why do they give. Some authors have identified mechanisms to give (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011), while others have developed a scale to measure the motives of charitable giving (Konrath & Handy, 2018). Researchers have also inquired about the relationship between charitable giving and demographic factors (e.g. religion, education, and gender) (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011b; Wiepking & Bekkers, 2012), values (e.g. pure vs. impure altruism) (Andreoni, 1989, 1990; Ottoni-Wilhelm et al., 2017), benefits (e.g. private benefit vs. public benefit) (Konrath & Handy, 2018), organizational factors (e.g. charity brand, and trust) (Sargeant et al. 2008; Michael & Ravenier, 2015; Dogan et al., 2021) among others. While most of the early research on charitable giving is based in the “global north”, many authors have contextualized it for the “global south”. This paper attempts to contextualize existing research on charitable giving in the context of the Nepali diaspora and their giving behavior.

The purpose of this research is to understand the giving behavior of the Nepali diaspora living in the “global north”. It attempts to answer two research questions: 1) How does the Nepali diaspora give to Nepali nonprofit organizations and philanthropic causes? 2) What motivates them to donate? This study defines diaspora as “ethnic minority groups of migrants of origins residing and acting in host countries but maintaining strong sentimental and material links with their countries of origin - their homelands (in this case Nepal)” (Sheffer, 1986, p.3; In Flaningan, 2017). Considering the dearth of literature on diaspora philanthropy and charitable giving in the Nepali context, the researchers hope to contribute to the existing knowledge base related to giving and philanthropy in Nepal and similar countries in the “global south”. The research is also expected to provide strategic directions to Nepali nonprofit organizations raising funds from the Nepali diaspora.

This quantitative research aims to describe and understand associations between charitable giving and diverse factors affecting it. These factors have been divided into two groups: 1) institutional variables related to the fundraiser (e.g. trust), and ii) individual variables related to the donor (like demography and motives to give). The data was collected using an online survey. The population of interest includes the Nepali diaspora living in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and Europe. Considering that the population is not consolidated in one “space”, and the list of the population is unavailable, the research deployed non-probability sampling methods including purposive sampling and snowball sampling. The findings of this study provide exploratory insights into the charitable giving behavior of the Nepali diaspora.

References

Andreoni, J. (1989). Giving with impure altruism: Applications to charity and Ricardian equivalence. Journal of political Economy, 97(6), 1447-1458.

Andreoni, J. (1990). Impure altruism and donations to public goods: A theory of warm-glow giving. The economic journal, 100(401), 464-477.

Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2011). A literature review of empirical studies of philanthropy: Eight mechanisms that drive charitable giving. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 40(5), 924-973.

Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2011). Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving part one: Religion, education, age and socialisation. Voluntary Sector Review, 2(3), 337-365.

Dogan, A., Calik, E., & Calisir, F. (2021). Organizational factors affecting individuals to donate to NPOs in the Turkish context. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 32(2), 303-315.

Katz, S. N. (1999). Where did the serious study of philanthropy come from, anyway? Nonprofit
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Konrath, S., & Handy, F. (2018). The development and validation of the motives to donate scale. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 47(2), 347-375.

Michel, G., & Rieunier, S. (2015). Nonprofit Brands: The Importance of Brand Image in Charitable Giving. In Proceedings of the 2009 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 22-22). Springer, Cham.

Ottoni-Wilhelm, M., Vesterlund, L., & Xie, H. (2017). Why do people give? Testing pure and impure altruism. American Economic Review, 107(11), 3617-33.

Sargeant, A., Ford, J. B., & Hudson, J. (2008). Charity brand personality: The relationship with giving behavior. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 37(3), 468-491.

Scheffer, G. (1986). A New Field of Study: Modern Diaspora in International Politics,[w:] Modern Diaspora in International Politics, red. tenże. In Flanigan, S. T. (2017). Crowdfunding and diaspora philanthropy: An integration of the literature and major concepts. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 28(2), 492-509.

Wiepking, P., & Bekkers, R. (2012). Who gives? A literature review of predictors of charitable giving. Part Two: Gender, family composition and income. Voluntary Sector Review, 3(2), 217-245.

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