O’NeillResearch on Giving and Volunt ering Research on Giving and Volunteering: Methodological Considerations

A 1998-1999 survey of the giving and volunteering practices of 3,616 adult Californians yielded some methodological considerations concerning research on charitable behavior. The survey paid particular attention to prompting respondent recall, informal giving and volunteering, and possible race/ethnicity differences in charitable behavior. On several key measures, reported levels of giving and volunteering exceeded national estimates based on Independent Sector studies. Californians were found to engage extensively in informal as well as formal charitable behavior. Multivariate analysis controlling for income, educational attainment, and immigration status revealed no significant race/ ethnicity-based differences in giving and volunteering. The following methodological comments about research on charitable behav-ior arise from my involvement with Giving and Volunteering in California (O’Neill & Roberts, 2000).1 This study was based on telephone interviews con-ducted between July 1998 and May 1999 with a statewide sample of 2,406 Cali-fornia adults (18 years of age and older) and a separate sample of 1,210 Latino, African American, and Asian/Pacific Islander adults in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, Berkeley, and other communities. This was the first statewide survey of charitable behavior in California, which in 1999 had an estimated 34 million residents (12 % of the U.S. population) and was the world’s seventh largest economy. The study was designed and the data collec-tion supervised by Richard Orend, director of research at the University of San Francisco’s Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management. The data anal-ysis and written report were completed by William Roberts and me, database administrator and director of the institute, respectively, following Orend’s untimely death in September 1999. In the United States, the most extensive research work on giving and volun-teering has been done by Independent Sector (IS), which conducted si