The research notes are published quarterly. Previous editions can be found at the Member Portal.

 

Issue XIII: December 2025

 

What Influence Do Death, Dying and Bereavement Have on Philanthropic Giving Within Hospice Care?

Author(s): Jo Bacon – University of Kent | Claire Routley – University of Kent | Beth Breeze – Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford

Provided by: Andrea Goezinne from Salesforce

The article is relevant for people working in fundraising, as well as those working in patient support and medical research charities, as it provides crucial insights into donor motivations and stewardship in a sensitive context. It researches a very important and under-researched area: what influence do death, dying, and bereavement have on philanthropic giving, and what approach should hospices adopt when stewarding bereaved donors? 

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Mission Over Money: Can Peer Pressure Help INGOs Stay Mission Focused?

Author(s): Alice Hengevoss and Georg von Schnurbein – Center for Philanthropy Studies, University of Basel

Provided by: Kate Sullivan from Fondazione Generali – The Human Safety Net 

The complex operating environment of international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) is observed to have two types of adverse pressures that influence leaders’ decision-making: high competition in the funding landscape (economic constraints) and adversarial relationships with public institutions, risking restrictive policies (political opportunity constraints). The authors aim to understand if these constraints bring friendly competition for INGOs to do their best work or if it leads to a “resource-security-orientation strategy” by re-allocating staff capacity and funds away from their mission towards activities aimed at improving their relationship with key stakeholders in order to alleviate these constraints.

 

Why and How to Demonstrate Data and Methods Transparency in Nonprofit Research

Author(s): René Bekkers – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Cassandra Chapman – The University of Queensland, Brisbane | Annayah Prosser – University of Bath | Pamala Wiepking – Indiana University, Indianapolis/Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam | Michael Meyer – WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Provided by: Fiona Watson

This paper sets out the context, risks, and benefits of increased transparency in non-profit research and offers practical suggestions to researchers and practitioners to support more openness. Transparency benefits the non-profit sector and should be the gold standard of non-profit research whilst respecting different research traditions.

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Automating SDG Monitoring: The text2sdg R Package for Text-Based Impact Analysis

Author(s): Dominik S. Meier – University of Basel | Rui Mata – University of Basel | Dirk Wulff – University of Basel  

Provided by: Samuel Okoth from Gobin Global

Existing approaches to monitoring the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have mainly focused on specific data types; namely, publications listed in proprietary research databases. The growing demand for data-driven monitoring of the SDGs has highlighted the need for scalable, transparent tools. The authors present the “text2sdg package” for R language, a user-friendly, open-source package that detects SDG-relevant in any kind of text data using different existing or custom-made query systems and an ensemble model. The text2sdg package facilitates the monitoring of SDGs for a wide array of text sources and provides a basis for validating and improving methods to detect SDGs.

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Three Kings Knocking at the Door: Is it All About the Money?

Author(s): Jakub Dostál – College of Polytechnics Jihlava | Vladimír Hyánek – College of Polytechnics Jihlava

Provided by: Silva Lässer from the Center for Public Management (KPM) at the University of Bern

The authors address the significance of volunteering in the Three Kings Collection (TKC), one of the largest door-to-door fundraising events for Caritas Czech Republic, by contrasting its quantified economic value with non-monetary value dimensions. This comparison can guide practitioners towards more holistic assessments of volunteer contributions and, more broadly speaking, inspire well-rounded monitoring, evaluation and reporting practices. More specifically, the authors pose the following research question: How can the value of volunteering be fully captured beyond traditional approaches which focus on monetary quantification?

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Social Origin Can Explain Differences Among Non-profit Quality Labels

Author(s): Oto Potluka – University of Basel | Aleksandra Belina – University of Warsaw | Martin Viktora – Prague University of Economics and Business

Provided by: Gerjob Lootens from CBF, Toezicht op goeddoen (Dutch Regulator on charities)

Self-regulation systems should lead to the professionalization of non-profit organizations. This study compares quality labels and accreditation systems in various countries. Not all social contexts are the same. The “social origins theory” describes social contexts in different types. The authors research whether (not to what extent) this theory can explain differences in the way accreditation systems differ from one country to another. 

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Making Corporate Volunteering Work for Your Mission

Author(s): Hanna Schneider – Vienna University of Economics and Business | Michaela Neumayr – Vienna University of Economics and Business

Provided by: Anh P. Nguyen from Happier Me

Corporate volunteering (CV)—when companies encourage their employees to volunteer their time or expertise with nonprofit organizations—has become a popular form of cross-sector collaboration. This study explores forms of nonprofit business collaboration from a nonprofit perspective: Why do nonprofits engage in CV? How do they interpret and make sense of corporate volunteering? How do these interpretations influence the types and dynamics of collaborations they form with companies?

 

Money, Power and Free Lunches: Examining Foundation-Non-profit Power Imbalances in the Context of Capacity-building Programmes

Author(s): Katy Adams – University of Sheffield

Provided by: Christin Bohnke from Hejmo

Focusing on foundation-non-profit relationships, the article reveals how power imbalances affect capacity-building programmes offered by foundations to nonprofit organisations. In doing so, it highlights barriers to equitable, trust-based partnerships and programme outcomes. How do power imbalances between foundations and nonprofits influence participation, effectiveness, and mutuality within foundation-funded capacity-building programmes?

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How Early-Stage Impact Investors Evaluate Social Impact Potential

Author(s): Peter Vandor – Vienna University of Economics and Business | Fabian Dober – Vienna University of Economics and Business | Michael Meyer – Vienna University of Economics and Business | Reinhard Millner – Vienna University of Economics and Business

Provided by: Ana Pimenta from Blink Impact 

As the Impact Investing field grows, the need to understand how early-stage impact investors evaluate the potential impact of a social enterprise increases. This is relevant for three main reasons: (i) impact assessment is what sets impact investing apart from traditional investing, (ii) most assessment tools are used after investments are made, and (iii) only around one third of social enterprises measure their impact. The article analyses the decision-making process (“cognitive processes”) applied by early-stage impact investors to assess a social enterprise’s potential impact.

 

Volunteer Retention – Influencing Factors in Refugee Aid Volunteering

Author(s): Maikel Meijeren – Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University | Naomi Ellemers – Utrecht University | Marcel Lubbers – Utrecht University

Provided by: Connor Audsley from the Centre for European Volunteering (CEV)

Refugee aid organisations are heavily reliant on volunteers, and a critical question for these organisations is how they can better retain these volunteers. The article analyses this question through looking at both the organisational and motivational factors influencing a volunteer’s satisfaction and decision to continue volunteering, highlighting practical lessons for volunteer retention. How do organisational and personal factors, influence a volunteer’s satisfaction with an organisation, and motivation to continue volunteering?

 

About the ERNOP Research Notes Most academic research on philanthropy is underutilised, while on the other hand, there is a need for practitioners to learn from academics. Given limited resources within the academic and philanthropy community, academic insights should be used as much as possible. However, practitioners rarely have time and access to the work published in academic journals. Besides, not all content of academic papers is relevant for practitioners. At the same time, academics often do not have time and/or skills to make their work accessible for practitioners and, what’s more, they get little rewards for doing so as the number of individual publications is often too limited to build a constituency. Therefore the European Research Network On Philanthropy (ERNOP) –  the academic network of philanthropy researchers in Europe – develops the ERNOP Research Notes. The Research Notes are an initiative by ERNOP and endorsed by the European Fundraising Association (EFA), Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea), the Centre for European Volunteering (CEV) and Impact Europe.

 

More information about the Research Notes can be found here.