PLOS Science Wednesday: We’re Peter Dodds, Bill Gottesman, and Andy Reagan. We published a paper in PLOS ONE that constructed a model that can help establish an institution’s gift-giving profiles and help organizations set fundraising goals – Ask Us Anything!

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Hi Reddit!

My name is Andy Reagan and I am a PhD candidate at the University of Vermont. My research focuses on computational social dynamics: using big data to better understand language, happiness, and health. I am joined by Bill Gottesman, a designer and builder of sundials, and Dr. Peter Dodds, Director of the Vermont Complex Systems Center and a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Vermont (UVM). Dr. Dodds teaches courses on the principles of complex systems and complex networks at UVM. His research covers complex systems and networks in general, with recent work focusing on social contagion, sociotechnical phenomena, happiness, language, and stories.

We recently published an article titled “Collective Philanthropy: Describing and Modeling the Ecology of Giving” in PLOS ONE. We found that philanthropic gifting appears to follow an approximate power-law size distribution, and detailed forms of gift-size distributions differ across but are relatively constant within charity categories. We showed how knowledge of gift-sized distributions may be used to assess an institution's gift-giving profile, to help set fundraising goals, and to design an institution-specific giving pyramid.

We will be answering your questions at 1pm EST (10am PST) on December 16 -- Ask Us Anything!

Follow Andy on Twitter @andyreagan for updates on PhD life and his black lab, Finn. Follow Dr. Dodds on Twitter @peterdodds and visit his website to learn more about his courses at UVM.

">PLOS Science Wednesday: We’re Peter Dodds, Bill Gottesman, and Andy Reagan. We published a paper in PLOS ONE that constructed a model that can help establish an institution’s gift-giving profiles and help organizations set fundraising goals – Ask Us Anything!