Research on Volunteering

Do we need another study on volunteer motives? Michael Callow’s work (published in the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing) argues that we do and that there is value in looking at volunteering among retirees. Too often, says Callow, we categorise types of volunteers into broad groups, with ‘older volunteers’ put into a category that merely allows them to be contrasted with other groups. This, however, leads to assumptions that all older volunteers come with the same motives and aspirations for their involvement.

While I think that Callow may not have considered all the many and varied studies into older peoples’ participation, there is some truth in what he says. As a result, this piece of research is an interesting contribution to thinking, especially as it comes from the perspective of an assistant professor of marketing, not from someone who focuses exclusively on volunteers.

This Research to Practice reviews a report on recruiting and retaining volunteers to work with AIDS service organisations. The study findings were developed through a survey of volunteers plus interviews and focus groups with managers of volunteers. The study examined  the experiences, perceptions and realities of work in this area. The researchers then tackled the challenges they found and came up with a raft of recommendations. The review of this report examines the research, its conclusions and the recommendations.

A year ago the RGK Center at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) started the Investigator series and has generously shared pre-publication drafts with the readers of e-Volunteerism to get additional input.  The goal of the series is to act as a resource and a promoter of in-depth research on volunteerism. 

This fourth issue of the Investigator describes various approaches to volunteer valuation.  Such approaches may not be groundbreaking information for the seasoned administrator, but having a compilation and an assessment of several valuation methods in one place should be beneficial to anyone who works with volunteers. The current issue of the Investigator aspires to be a central source of such information

This article examines a research report done at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada by Evelina J. Rog, S. Mark Pancer, and Mark C. Baetz: “Corporate Volunteer Programs: Maximising Employee Motivation and Minimizing Barriers to Program Participation.” The research was done on the Ford Motor Company’s employee volunteer programme and is based on in-depth interviews with over 100 staff. It outlines six key points to increase employee volunteering. The Research-to-Practice article highlights where the findings resonate with other volunteering research, but also notes some areas where convincing companies to have an employee volunteering programme might encounter barriers not addressed in this research.

Research-to-Practice Editor Steven Howlett re-visits a paper by Colin Rochester published in Voluntary Action, the journal of the Institute for Volunteering Research in 1999, about the management implications for volunteer coordination based on the organisational setting in which it takes place. Rochester observed that organisational context will impact upon how volunteering is managed, but this context is not very well addressed in the research literature and, as a result, best practice writing often gives minimal advice about how practice can vary from organisation to organisation.

The paper argues that there have been two implicit assumptions in the literature which may explain why the organisational context of volunteering has received less attention. The first is that what is being measured and described as volunteering is seen to be essentially the same activity regardless of where it happens. Second is the tendency to view volunteering as part of the non-profit sector, where it is seen as primarily unpaid workers contributing to the goals of the organisation; the result of this is a dominance management language emphasising the ‘workplace model’ of management.

Note:  Thanks to the generous permission of the Institute for Volunteering Research, the full text of the original study is provided as a PDF accompanying this review.

This edition of Research-to-Practice looks at three reports that examine corporate employee volunteering. Employee volunteering is an area of considerable growth and of great interest, but how can volunteer-involving organisations and volunteers managers make the most of relations with business? The three reports reviewed here are a survey of employee volunteering from national research in the UK, a study of corporate responsibility and volunteering in 7 countries, and a research project to evaluate the employee volunteering scheme of one bank in the UK.

With the advent of more and larger data sets, research on volunteering is transitioning from pontificating to proving hypothesis about volunteering characteristics. The RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the University of Texas publishes the Investigator, a series of information briefs designed to bridge the gap between practitioners and researchers in volunteerism, and to encourage researchers to do more in the field of volunteerism.

The first issue,“Data Sets on Volunteerism: A Research Primer,” previewed in e-Volunteerism before being made available to the public, summarized existing data sets and provided examples of the analyses that can be generated from them. One of the data sets described was the Current Population Survey Supplements. The second issue of the Investigator, “Volunteering by States,” uses this data set to report volunteering rates and characteristics of volunteers by each State in the United States.

e-Volunteerism unveils the second issue of the Investigator (giving readers the chance to provide feedback prior to the public presentation) with comments explaining the process. Learn more about the characteristics of volunteers on a state-by-state basis in the US, and how to use such studies to assist your volunteer program. Non-American readers will find the concepts useful as well and have the opportunity to identify similar studies in their countries.

When the 1997 National Survey for Volunteering in the UK was published, it appeared to show that young peoples’ regard and enthusiasm for volunteering was in decline. Responding to this, the Institute for Volunteering Research produced the report ‘What Young People Want from Volunteering’ (a summary can be obtained at http://www.ivr.org.uk/youngresearch.htm), based on qualitative research with groups of young people. This research resulted in a ‘wish-list’ for volunteering: ‘Flexivol’ summarises the essential requirements of 16-24 year olds, and serves as an acronym for the most important elements young people want in a volunteer assignment.

Read about ‘Flexivol’ and the report’s findings in this review.

It seems counter-intuitive for most people working in volunteering that such participation should be bad for your health. A new research paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health claims just this, flying in the face of much other evidence. Is volunteering bad for you, or should we pay more attention to the way in which we involve volunteers and acknowledge that bad (or no) volunteer management may offset the positive impacts of volunteering? This Research-to-Practice looks at a new survey and asks whether it is volunteering or the organisation of volunteering that the authors found problematic.

Have you ever wondered where researchers find the statistical data that allows them to determine the long-term effects of volunteering on one's health or on one's career?  Or questioned how frequently the Independent Sector or the Bureau of Labor Statistics conduct surveys on volunteering among Americans? Or, more to the point, have you ever wondered why the research that is published about volunteering never seems to really answer the questions that most concern you as as a manager of volunteers?

The RGK Center on Philanthropy and Community Service, a Center at the University of Texas at Austin, unveils the first of its Investigator series of Fact Sheets to e-Volunteerism readers in advance of release to the general public.  Designed to encourage graduate students and others to consider research in volunteerism, the first issue in this quarterly series identifies some of the more commonly used survey instruments that collect data on the volunteering behaviors of Americans.  The Fact Sheet provides information about the type of questions asked, the frequency with which these questions are asked, and how to secure the findings from these instruments.  Developed by economist and Ph.D. student Mark Pocock, in collaboration with Dr. Sarah Jane Rehnborg, the director of the Center's volunteerism initiative, the Investigator series will address topics important to volunteerism at the University level.