WILLINGNESS OF COMMUNITIES TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DONATION PROGRAM OPERATIONS

Community partnerships in a program are an important matter that must be considered to tackle bigger tasks, form structures to work inside, and elaborate plans to achieve the objectives. A community partnership, in general, is a collaborative connection created by consenting organizations to meet common goals. In the case of the proposed donation program facility to be participated in by the beneficiaries from target local communities and extensionists from the higher education institutions and local government units, the assessment of the past and current community relationships helped in establishing the intentions as evidence. It may take more time and effort, but effective partnerships provide the connections, shared knowledge, and collaborative attention required to achieve long-term progress on community and economic development concerns. The Willingness to Participate Framework assessed the capabilities, perceived benefits, and inclination to participate to determine the disposition of beneficiaries and workforces of the proposed food and non-food donation program facility in the model cities. This theory, as employed in the study, determined the capabilities, perceived benefits, and intentions, revealing the positive intentions of most of the respondents.  Quantitative method was used to assess the willingness to participate, where the survey questionnaires were distributed among the target respondents from the selected barangays of the model cities. On the other hand, the qualitative method was used to determine the willingness to participate of the participants from selected higher education institutions and local government units. A series of documented interviews was conducted to gather data from the extension heads of the selected higher education institutions and barangay officials of the local government units.  The findings generated a “very strongly agree” response, denoting a high level of perceived intentions to participate in the setting up of a donation program facility on the side of the constituents. Those who are facing poverty signified the intention to participate in an initiative or program that is being developed to empower them to address the issues they face. On the part of the higher education institutions and local government units, the findings revealed the intentions of the participants to participate in the programs through the community extension activities.

Keywords:       The willingness to participate framework, food donation program, perceived benefits and intentions, quantitative method