Sara Kinsbergen

Bringing the Beneficiary Closer: Explanations for Volunteering Time in Dutch Private Development Initiatives

In the Netherlands, charitable behavior for international development purposes is subject to important changes. Whereas established development organizations suffer from a declining support base, private development initiatives (PDIs) that execute concrete, small-scale projects within direct personalized aid networks can count on increasing enthusiasm from individual donors of money and time. We investigate to what extent cost-benefit evaluations of volunteers (supply side) and characteristics of PDIs (demand side) affect the time allocation for volunteering in these organizations. The study is based on a survey among 661 volunteers active in Dutch PDIs. PDI volunteers face time and budget restrictions, partly due to their position on the (paid) labor market. Volunteers who are skeptical toward established development organizations increase voluntary time investment in PDIs. Corroborating the proximity hypothesis, volunteers perceiving a smaller distance to beneficiaries, spend more volunteering hours in PDIs. Volunteers also spend more hours volunteering for PDIs with larger budgets and more staff.

Explaining monetary donations to international development organisations: A factorial survey approach.

This article investigates what type of international development organisations potential donors would prefer to donate to. We constructed 960 scenarios in which a fictive development organisation was described. The scenarios were randomly varied across eight characteristics of the organisation: size, familiarity, experience, religious character, number of different projects run by the organisation, number of countries in which the organisation is active, overhead costs and staff composition. A large representative sample of the Dutch population (N=2,758) received six randomly allocated scenarios and had to decide if, and if so, how much they would donate to the depicted (fictive) organisation. Results demonstrate that donors have a preference for familiar organisations with several years of experience. Although donors have a strong aversion regarding overhead costs, we find that donors seem to value the capacities of paid staff members and are, to a certain extent, willing to pay a price for these. The ideal development organisation combines features typical of small(er) scale voluntary development organisations (e.g. mainly run by volunteers) and large(r) scale professional organisations (e.g. running development programmes in numerous countries).

Understanding the Sustainability of Private Development Initiatives : What Kind of Difference Do They Make?

Abstract In the Netherlands, there is a large group of small-scale, voluntary development organisations, referred to as Private Development Initiatives (PDIs). By classifying PDI interventions based on their potential sustainability, we aim to enhance our understanding of PDIs as alternative development actors and to get insight into the diversity within this group. We rely on detailed data of 49 Dutch PDIs active in Kenya and Indonesia. The classification is based on a combined analysis of both the intervention type (‘what’ they do) and the intervention manner (‘how’ they work) of PDI activities. This results in a typology that outlines the potential sustainability of PDI intervention strategies. We find that diversity regarding the potential sustainability of PDI interventions is large. Whereas several organisational characteristics influence the choice of the intervention strategy (e.g. independence local partner, budget), intrinsic drivers such as motivation and the personal or professional background of PDI members tend to be of great influence for the potential sustainability of the intervention strategies adopted by the PDIs.