Experiential philanthropy in China

Abstract

Experiential philanthropy is a form of service-learning where students are provided with money (generally from a foundation) to distribute to nonprofit organizations. The pedagogy is intended to teach students not only about philanthropy but also about how to evaluate philanthropic responses to social issues. In recent years, scholars have begun to explore how an experiential approach to the philanthropic process could result in a more philanthropically engaged and committed citizenry. This research has provided promising evidence of the efficacy of experiential philanthropy as a pedagogic strategyparticularly within higher education. Despite its effectiveness, research on experiential philanthropy has focused primarily on the US. As such, we have no knowledge of the effectiveness of this pedagogic strategy in other regions of the worldespecially in emerging philanthropic regions such as China. Therefore, using three semesters of original pre-and postcourse survey data (including quantitative and qualitative responses) obtained from students enrolled in an Introduction to Nonprofit Management course at a university in northeast China, this study addresses the following question: To what extent does experiential philanthropy enhance Chinese students' understanding of, and commitment to, philanthropy?

Teaching student philanthropy—Possibilities for practice within the UK higher education sector

“…Literature consistently highlights the benefits of student philanthropy programmes (e.g., Ahmed & Olberding, 2007;McDonald et al, 2017;McDougle, 2022;Olberding, 2009Olberding, , 2012. Whilst most of the outcomes focus on US students, emerging evidence suggests that such programmes are transferable, as similar outcomes are experienced by students in China (Li et al, 2020). However, in the US certain students benefit more than others.…”

On teaching philanthropy

“…Certainly, research on experiential philanthropy has provided ample evidence of its efficacy as a pedagogic strategy to support student learning as well as the promotion of prosocial values and civic engagement (see Mao, 2021 for a review). It has even been demonstrated that the pedagogy has clear application to learning and engagement for students in applied fields such as business management (Campbell, 2014), public administration (Li et al, 2020), and social work (Olberding & Kim, 2021).…”

“…In fact, only one study to date has examined cross‐national variation in the short‐term effectiveness of experiential philanthropy on student outcomes. The findings of this study, which focused on two experiential philanthropy initiatives—one in the US and the other in China—indicated that similar to in the US, taking a course with an experiential philanthropy component increased Chinese students' awareness of social issues and provided them with a greater understanding of the role that nonprofit organizations can play in addressing these issues (Li et al, 2020). Moreover, the findings revealed that experiential philanthropy increased Chinese students' interest in philanthropic education, their intentions to participate in future philanthropic activities, and even their desire to choose a career in the nonprofit sector.…”

“…For instance, in the United Kingdom at the University of Kent a Student Philanthropy Fund was established with funding from the Kent Community Foundation (University of Kent Student Philanthropy Fund, n.d.); and, Australia's Swinburne University launched the country's first experiential philanthropy program in 2015 (Global Philanthropy Initiative, n.d.). Experiential philanthropy has also been implemented at Normal universities in China (Li et al, 2020). Despite growing cross‐national use of the pedagogy, cross‐national research on experiential philanthropy has been rare.…”

Service-Learning in Higher Education and Prosocial Identity Formation

“…Mooney and Edwards (2001) have, therefore, suggested that "In its simplest form, service-learning entails student volunteering in the community for academic credit" (p. 181). In recent years, however, SLEs have also been designed to allow students opportunities to engage in the distribution of charitable funds-a pedagogical practice commonly referred to as experiential, or student, philanthropy (Li et al, 2019(Li et al, , 2020McDougle et al, 2017;Xu et al, 2019).…”