Abstract

Background:           The environment of the charity sector is changing. The overall sector of licensed charities in the Netherlands grew over the past couple of years, but this trend is not caused by a growth in contributors, as the numbers show a downwards slope. Besides that, research shows that the individual’s willingness to contribute to charity declines. Next to that, it is visible that the needs and wishes of contributors to charity change. This could possibly imply that individuals are willing to engage with charity, but in a different manner.

Purpose:                  The way contributors contribute to charitable organisations is evident, but how and why individuals engage is a relatively unexplored area, as previous research mainly focused on the motivations rather than the dimensions of engagement. Therefore, the research purpose of this paper is to investigate the dimensions of engagement of Dutch individuals towards DCS, whilst it adds to the existing body of literature about contributor engagement in the charity sector.

Method:                   The study revolved around a positivistic research philosophy, following a sequential mixed-method research design to gather the information and insights needed. A questionnaire was used to obtain the inputs of 333 unique respondents, which was followed up by 10 semi-structured in-depth interviews to enrich the findings. To analyse the data, various techniques, such as factor analysis, correlation and multiple regression, were executed to reveal statistically significant relationships and influences among the variables.

Conclusion:             The results show that the five dimensions of volunteer engagement, namely behavioural, emotional, cognitive, spiritual and social, are also applicable when investigating contributor engagement. However, the study has shown that all dimensions apart from the spiritual one have a statistically significant influence on the contributor engagement of Dutch individuals towards DCS. Further findings and a more profound understanding of the motives of interviewees revealed that the deeper motivations to engage or not engage with DCS are in line with national trends visible within the charity sector. The outcomes could contribute to DCS’ and possibly other charitable organisations’ understanding of the altering needs and wishes of contributors and the Dutch society. More specifically, the findings can contribute to the existing knowledge of the dimensions of engagement and could be utilised for marketing purposes to focus on the right areas when developing future strategies.