Now that the holidays have rolled around, our campus and our community are awash in food and clothing drives. 

Their popularity and endurance make me think that there is a lot to be learned from them.  Here are a few of the questions I'd like to see answered:

1. Do drives behave like certain types of businesses (restaurants, for example) in that they perform better when they cluster than when they stand alone?  If not, how can they be spread out throughout the calendar year?

2. Who contributes to drives?  Are they civically engaged in other ways also, or is this their preferred form of giving?  Is giving to a drive a "gateway" to other forms of community work?

3. We are learning that small acts, rightly applied, can cause enormous benefits (I'm thinking here of micro-lending and the stories in Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point).  Is receiving a gift of food or clothing the right sort of small act?  If not, can drives be "tweaked" to do their giving differently?

4. Recent research suggests that people give more when their giving is personalized rather than applied to a broad, abstract issue.  It is also true that the longest-lasting civic efforts tend to be based on reciprical relationships. Drives tend to be pretty impersonal and not reciprocal.  Is this a mistake?