PhD position in the field of Managing Charitable Giving Dynamics

Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative center of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Belonging to the best research universities of Europe and joining forces with prestigious partner universities and networks, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

Faculty of Economics and Business
The Faculty of Economics and Business offers an inspiring study and working environment for students and employees. International accreditation enables the Faculty to assess performance against the highest international standards. It also creates an exciting environment of continuous improvement. FEB's programmes, academic staff and research do well on various excellence ranking lists.

FEBRI, the graduate school and research institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business has one PhD position in the field of Managing Charitable Giving Dynamics available.

Project description
Many societally important causes depend on charitable giving. While the amount of charitable giving by individuals, foundations and corporations is high ($557 billion in the U.S. in 2023), more and more causes depend on such charitable giving. It is therefore no surprise that these causes are interested in retaining donors and increasing donations. Though the topic of charitable giving has been studied a lot in the past, there is ample room for research focused on dynamics, long-term effects, large datasets and field experiments. The topic is closely connected to the ‘better marketing for a better world’ literature, which has received increasing attention in top marketing journals in recent years.

You will study questions related to how, why and when donors should (and should not!) be approached, with a specific interest in dynamics and effects over time. Such questions are not limited to one charitable cause, but can also involve the interplay between multiple charitable causes. In this project, you will collaborate with Data Inside, a member of the UG’s Customer Insights Center which has data available from several Dutch charitable organizations. These organizations have also indicated their willingness to participate in field experiments.

The PhD position is embedded in the research programme Marketing of FEB’s Research Institute. You will therefore be working at the Department of Marketing. The project will be supervised by Dr Roelof Hars, Dr Hans Risselada, and Dr Marijke Leliveld.

The ideal candidate is ambitious, highly motivated and wishes to make a career in research. He or she has a thorough training in quantitative research methods, speaks and writes English fluently and has obtained excellent results in the master phase.

Furthermore, the ideal candidate…

- Has a background (MSc, Research Master) in a quantitative discipline such as (Quantitative) Marketing, Econometrics, (Quantitative) Psychology, Data Science or related fields.
- Is skilled in working with time series, panel and/or unstructured data.
- Has demonstrable experience in R, Python, or a related programming language.
- Has demonstrable experience working with (large) datasets.
- Is familiar with experimental methods (preferred, not required)
- Already has some knowledge of or has clear affinity with the areas of customer relationship management and/or charitable giving.
- Preferably speaks and understands Dutch at B2 level or higher. We expect that the data you will be working with will (partially) be in Dutch.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

- A gross monthly salary from a minimum of € 2,901, which increases yearly to a maximum of € 3,707 for a full-time appointment.
- Based on the gross salary an additional 8% holiday allowance each year in May, and an additional 8.3 % end of year bonus in December. PhD candidates contribute 20% of their time to teaching in years 2-4.
- A temporary full-time appointment for a period of four years, under the condition of a positive assessment at the end of the first year.

Starting date: Preferably per 1 September 2025