Creating more generous societies

My mission is to make philanthropy more meaningful for all actors involved, and to conduct and implement philanthropy research in such a way that it will enable the creation of generous societies. Generous societies are societies where people care about each other, and want to contribute to the public good, rather than take from it. In my TEDx Erasmus University talk I explain how I believe we can all help to create more generous societies. I am very proud to be selected as the 2017 recipient of the UMD SPP Do Good Institute-ARNOVA Award for Global Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership.

I am the inaugural Stead Family Chair in International Philanthropy and Associate Professor of Philanthropy at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI in Indianapolis. I am also Full Professor of Societal Significance of Charitable Lotteries (funded by the Dutch Postcode Loterij), at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

In my role as Stead Family Chair in International Philanthropy, I study philanthropy and nonprofit organizations from a cross-national and interdisciplinary perspective. I aim to collaborate with people from across the world to come to a more inclusive understanding and study of all types of generosity behavior. My professorship at the Vrije Universiteit focuses at increasing the understanding of the effects of unrestricted, multiyear funding for grantee effectiveness.

Together with other researchers I have published on philanthropy in –among others- Social Forces, the European Sociological Review, Voluntas and the Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly and with Femida Handy I have co-edited The Palgrave Handbook on Global Philanthropy, describing and explaining philanthropic giving across countries.