Dominik Meier is currently a senior researcher (post-doc) at the Center for Philanthropy Studies (CEPS) at the University of Basel. During his time at the University of Basel, Dominik studied economics, earning a Bachelor of Science (BSc), and psychology, for which he earned both a Bachelor (BSc) and a Master of Science (MSc). He completed his PhD in economic psychology in 2023, focusing on studying social preferences using both lab and field data. Building on his doctoral research, Dominik currently uses crowdfunding data to test theories of social preferences. Next to studying social preferences on the individual level, Dominik is also interested in nonprofit organizations as vehicles that allow people to express their social preferences. In this line of research, Dominik is especially interested in how nonprofit organizations differ from for-profit organizations and in how nonprofit organizations contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Dominik likes to use state-of-the-art methods to answer his research questions and has an avid interest in machine learning and natural language processing. As part of this interest in machine learning and the SDGs, Dominik co-developed an open-source R package (text2sdg) that allows to detect SDGs in text. In an effort to make the possibilities of machine learning available to nonprofits, Dominik co-founded an organization that provides pro bono data science services to nonprofit organizations.  

Papers:

Meier, D. S., Petrig, A., & Schnurbein, G. V. (2023). Risking Your Health to Help Others: The Effect of Pandemic Severity on Volunteering. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 08997640231185119. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640231185119

Meier, D. S. (in press). Compassion for all: Real-world online donations contradict compassion fade. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

Meier, D. S. (2023). The evolution of SDG-related third sector and public administration literature: an analysis and call for more SDG-related research. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 19(1), 2236501. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2023.2236501