Hi everyone, my name is Berber. In this blog, I would like to tell you a bit more about my interest in the non-profit sector, and the relation between communication and the non-profit sector. After that, I will also share some of the highlights from the study that I executed during my internship.
Internship host
It’s been around 5 months since I started my internship at War Child. War Child is a non-profit organization that improves the well-being and resilience of children affected by violence and armed conflict. The organization offers educational help, psychosocial help, and protection to children.
International development studies
During my bachelor, I followed a minor in international development studies. I learned more about global inequalities, ranging from their causes, characteristics, and possible solutions. I learned more about a broad range of topics like poverty, conflict, security, social and gender inequality, sustainability, education, the environment, and the relationship between local, national, and global processes. This minor made me realize that I want to further develop myself in this field. During this minor, I gained a knowledge base to critically examine current issues in the development debate, and how they relate to wider processes of inequality, globalization, and collective action. I decided I wanted to do an internship at a charity organization, to learn more about this type of organization and the communication job opportunities in this field.
My internship position
I am very thankful and happy for the internship position that I got offered at War Child. During the past 5 months, I have been part of the fundraising team. The fundraising team consists of different sub-teams; the actions and events team, the private/individual donor team, the major donor team, and the business/partnerships team. Besides supporting the fundraising team, it has been very interesting to see how important it is for charity organizations to create respectful, effective and up-to-date communication messages. I believe it can be difficult for charities to find a balance between fundraising and creating ethical messages, as the organization must deal with different types of audiences and their specific needs. This is a topic that I find personally very interesting and important, and it is something that I would like to learn more about in the future.
Research
As I just mentioned, I think it is interesting to see how different communication techniques are used for different audiences. The donor base of War Child consists of people who are relatively older. It is interesting to look at how the younger generation can be involved with charity giving as well. When considering the gaming industry, it has been found that young men make up a large share of people who play video games. The Power Up Cup is an event organized by War Child, where several well-known streamers/gamers raise awareness and money for children affected by armed conflict throughout a couple of weeks. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to find out what it is that motivates this specific audience to donate during live streams. And find out why this is. I found that the uses and gratifications theory and self-termination theory can explain the social influence that is exerted on this audience. There are many aspects, such as challenges, games, and visuals that motivate people to donate during online live streams. The study provides a theoretical background as well as a detailed list of motivations that can be bolstered by streamers to increase people’s donating intentions.
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