Members Evening

Overview:

‘Charities have supporters’ seems a fairly innocuous and obviously true statement. But what if this were not so obviously true? What if the term ‘support’ itself is very problematic in understanding charitable behaviour? These are the kinds of questions we have started asking ourselves having started with a simple ‘Why do people give to charity?’. Even this by itself is a notoriously difficult behaviour to explain. Would you want to tell a researcher how much money you have given to charity last year and why? Would you really be able to explain it even if you wanted to? However, unlocking the secrets of what truly makes people philanthropic, would have a massive upside, increasing charities’ abilities to fund life saving projects and more than that, enabling government and society at large to encourage a more participatory and socially responsible society.

At Oxfam we are trying to understand at a deeper level people’s motivations and intentions to engage with charity using large sample studies and statistical modelling. Our models are allowing us to isolate the factors which drive people to engage with charity and with Oxfam and those which are totally irrelevant to support, with some surprising results – and without ever quite asking questions of the nature of ‘So tell us, why do you give to Oxfam?’

Who should attend?

This talk will be of interest to those concerned with what drives philanthropic and altruistic motivations, but also to anyone who is interested in questions of methodology and approach, and the use of qualitative, quantitative and statistical techniques to peer deep into human motivations and behaviours (without using neuroscience, electrodes, eyeball scanning, skin resistance measuring, hypnotism or other such shiny new toys!)

Speaker: Santanu Chakrabarti, Head of Insights, Oxfam GB

Santanu started his career in advertising before moving into media and eventually to Newscorp’s Indian operations, Star India, where he was head of Marketing and Programming for two English language channels. He then went on to do a PhD in Communications and Information at Rutgers University before coming to Oxfam in 2012 as the Head of Innovation and Change Strategy in the Campaigns team, joining the Insights team in 2013. He is a regular presenter at conferences around the world and has published his work in journals and edited volumes.

Time: 18:30–19:30 Followed by drinks and networking until 20:00

Venue

MRS
The Old Trading House, 15 Northburgh Street,London,EC1V 0JR


Additional Information

Get the latest MRS news

Our newsletters cover the latest MRS events, policy updates and research news.