I decided to switch my research and the publications to english, because there are more scholars for my topic then in german language universities.

Exactely a year after starting my dissertation studies I completed the research proposal (link to the PDF) as big first step towards dissertation.

Abstract

Austrian non-profit organisations (NPOs) play a central role in society and rely on donations and voluntary work to fulfil their missions. Despite the high brand awareness of many NPOs, it remains unclear what influence brand perception has on the willingness to donate and to what extent brand equity contributes to the long-term securing of resources. This dissertation analyses the relationship between brand equity and donations of Austrian NPOs and combines approaches from marketing research with concepts from nonprofit and philanthropy research.

The methodological approach is mixed methods, combining a systematic literature review, an analysis of existing studies on giving and the author’s own quantitative survey. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to estimate the influence of the brand equity factors to donations.

It was a long way, if you compare it to my first Ideas of what to research about:

Overview
The planned dissertation will deal with the role of branding and brand management/reception from a business and marketing perspective and as a way of creating emotional anchor points for individuals and social subsystems in the volatile society of postmodernity, which is increasingly slipping into the digital realm. It is therefore about the dichotomy between the business and social science perspectives on the same phenomenon of the ‘brand’.
In a time of uncertainty and advancing radical individualisation – ‘anything goes’ – people are looking for orientation and stability, whereby brands – especially those of organisations – offer not only commercial, but also emotional and social value propositions. People sometimes no longer find this orientation and the associated ‘socialisation into subsystems/subcultures’ personally in the communal experience, but in their own radical individuality. However, this means that simplifying cultural phenomena are lost and reality becomes more complex. In times of social change, of what many feel is the demise of social structuring organisations, there is – and this is a first thesis – an increasing need for ‘structuring and structured structures’ in the sense of reflexive mechanisms, as Bourdieu describes them with the habitus.
The medial communication of shared values is also increasingly failing – and this is another thesis – due to the fragmentation and radical change in medial forms of communication. Media-marketing individualisation of social media reality with segment sizes of n=1 create a world of their own for everyone.
In the non-profit sector, this need is particularly complex, as the stakeholders are diverse and often act in a decoupled manner. Donors, volunteers and recipients of the impact of organisations have different expectations and interactions with the organisation or its internalised image – the brand – which makes brand communication and strategy much more complex. The institutional roles of this organisation in the state or in society as a whole make the consideration even more complex, as essential social functions are outsourced to these organisations by the state at all levels of administrative policy action.

So next step is the survey research. I am eager to start in the next weeks to go into the field research …