Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) papers and publications
Household Giving and Volunteering Reports
COPPS data extracts

The Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) is the Center on Philanthropy’s signature research project that aims to follow the same families’ philanthropic behaviors throughout their lives.The study will provide nonprofit sector professionals, fundraisers, policymakers and public officials a unique perspective of families’ giving and volunteering behaviors over time.

The COPPS is conducted in conjunction with the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research’s Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which has surveyed the same 5,000 households since 1966. As children of these respondents have matured, they have been added to the sample, which now exceeds 7,400 households. In 2001, researchers added the philanthropy component, designed and sponsored by the Center on Philanthropy. We hope to repeat the survey every two years thereafter, pending funding.

The COPPS is the only study that surveys giving and volunteering by the same households over time as families mature, face differing economic circumstances and encounter changes in their family size, health and other factors. It also is the only data available that asks families extensively about their wealth and philanthropy as well as income and other relevant factors.

Because the PSID employs genealogical sampling (those who are born or marry into sample families are included thereafter), the panel will allow researchers to study the transmission of philanthropic behaviors across generations and to study the relationship between helping family members and helping anonymous others. Finally, the panel data will help us distinguish types of donors who respond differently to economic, demographic, and environmental factors.