Mirroring Social Identity and Philanthropic Motivations in Higher Education

• In Event: Philanthropy and Community Partnerships

Abstract

Identity has long been a topic of study in higher education, however, there is not a lot of research on identity and college graduates. More specifically, researchers have not explored on how an alumnus/na’s social identity might affect their alumni giving and to which students they might give scholarship support. Identity-based philanthropy purports that social identities effect giving and that people tend to support those who mirror themselves, yet there is little quantitative research exploring this notion within higher education. Using a population-based experiment (n=1621), we found that respondents who share higher number of social identities with students profiled in solicitations are more likely than others to assign more importance and to give.

Author

• Noah Daniel Drezner, Teachers College, Columbia University