Facilitating Change » generosity http://facilitatingchange.org one butterfly flapping its wings Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:29:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Three million dollars for research on generosity http://facilitatingchange.org/2009/03/three-million-for-generosity-research/ http://facilitatingchange.org/2009/03/three-million-for-generosity-research/#comments Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:32:15 +0000 Christine http://www.facilitatingchange.org/?p=531 If I had time (and the resources), I would want to learn more about what makes people and organizations resilient. How is it that some of us not only survive tragedy, abuse, or war — but actually thrive and contribute despite it? As it is, my research is limited to a collection of neglected folders deep in my hard drive, along with several mostly forgotten bookmarks. I also pay attention when I hear about studies of happiness — I’ve seen examples from both economics (Economist, Freakonomics) and psychology. Diving into the positive appeals to my optimistic, enthusiastic core.

Today I learned that University of Notre Dame, with funding from the John Templeton Foundation, has three million bucks to advance the field of generosity research. They’re defining generosity as “the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly”. The lit reviews they have commissioned so far cover topics like Generous Financial Giving and Philanthropy, the Social Psychology of Generosity, Corporate Giving, and Religious Giving.

What I’d like to learn more about is why people are generous to each other in terms of their affection, attention, and time. More specifically, why are people generous to each other online? What makes that geek in some forum deep in cyberspace answer my desperate technical questions? Why do people contribute to open and collaborative projects? I want to know more about the relationship between generosity and peer production. I have yet to read Clay Shirkey and am only halfway through Coase’s Penguin. I note that Benkler cites classic sociological and anthropological texts related to gift-giving (exchange) and economic theories of the organization. What would he do, I wonder, with more learning on generosity? Does the net make it easier to be generous?

Download the full announcement: http://generosityresearch.nd.edu/request-for-proposals/pdf-of-rfp/

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