Where do I belong? Volunteer attachment in a complex organization

To understand volunteer retention and recruitment in complex organizations, this paper focuses on volunteers' attachment to a multipurpose and multi-branch organization. Using the Red Cross in Flanders (Belgium), a service organization with multiple locations offering a variety of programs, we investigate whether volunteers' attachment is primarily directed toward the organization as a whole, or whether volunteers are more prone to develop localized attachment to the program or branch in which they participate. Our findings suggest that managers recruiting volunteers to large complex organizations should be cautious in using the overarching organizational mission to attract volunteers. Rather, attention should be put on specific programs and activities using volunteers. It is only through longer-term service that volunteers appreciate the organization's mission and principles and find their allegiance to the organization as a whole

Advocacy by environmental nonprofit organizations: An optimal strategy for addressing environmental problems?

Several policy alternatives exist to protect environmental quality. Environmental nonprofits advocating for better environmental quality must often choose what policies to advocate and support. This article argues that environmental nonprofits will do best by designing strategies of advocacy contingent on the net costs to the stakeholders and paying attention to the crowding-out effects of monetary incentives. It investigates the advocacy policies of 50 environmental organizations in Canada. The findings of this survey show that although reduction of net costs is espoused, market-based policies are not generally advocated, while a greater emphasis is put on regulatory approaches combined with moral suasion through the dissemination of information and educational programs

Volunteering

In recent decades, there has been a burgeoning interest in the study of volunteering, and the number of publications devoted to volunteering has grown exponentially. In this chapter, we examine emerging theories and new directions in volunteering research. First, we discuss multi-level perspectives that try to understand volunteering in complex interaction with the organizational and institutional context. Next, we present process-oriented approaches that focus on the experience of volunteering, as it changes through different stages of organizational socialization, and as a consequence of broader societal and sector-wide transformations. Finally, in the light of these sector changes, new methods of social accounting have emerged that expand traditional financial statements of nonprofits to account for volunteer labor. This review Demonstrates that, as research on volunteering further expands, it tends to grow in its diversity of questions and viewpoints, and to reflect the complex and dynamic nature of volunteering more precisely

The Development and Validation of the Motives to Donate Scale

In this article, we develop and validate a comprehensive self-report scale of why people make charitable donations, relying on a theoretical model of private versus public benefits to donors. In Study 1, we administered an initial pool of 54 items to a general adult sample online. An exploratory factor analysis supported six final factors in the Motives to Donate scale: Trust, Altruism, Social, Tax benefits, Egoism, and Constraints. We then verified this factor structure in a confirmatory factor analysis. Study 1 also examined the final 18-item scale’s demographic correlates and construct validity using the same sample. We found that the scale correlated in predictable ways with personality traits and motives to volunteer. In Study 2, we also found test–retest correlations between .67 and .80 after 2 weeks. Taken together, we provide initial evidence for the scale’s internal reliability, test–retest reliability, and validity, and we suggest future directions for research

The Demand for Volunteer Labor: A Study of Hospital Volunteers

The authors challenge the assumption that organizations are willing to use all the volunteer labor available to them. Rather, they are influenced by the costs incurred of utilizing volunteer labor. This article provides a modest first look at the demand for volunteers by nonprofit institutions. Specifically, the article presents an economic analysis of the demand of volunteer labor by hospitals in the Toronto area and examines some of the factors that may determine the hospitals’ willingness to use volunteer labor. Using data generated from 28 hospitals in Toronto, which use a total of more than 2 million volunteer hr per year, the authors show that the quantity of volunteer hours demanded is a decreasing function of their costs. Other factors such as productivity, output, and labor market institutions also influence the demand for volunteers

Practice What You Preach? The Role of Rural NGOs in Women\u27s Empowerment

There is considerable theoretical and empirical support for wage differentials between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. This research article examines how executive directors of 377 nonprofits across Canada view their wages. Executive directors’ perceptions, especially concerning their own wages, are important because it is in this context that they make choices about where to work. This, in turn, determines the managerial labor supply for the sector. The article begins by presenting a brief review of the theoretical explanations offered by scholars for wage differentials, looks next at the empirical findings on wage differentials, and then presents the research findings. In discussing the findings, the article analyzes what motivates executive directors to work in the nonprofit sector despite the negative wage differential and examines the research results for gender differences with respect to wages, wage differentials, and motivations

Valuing Volunteers: An Economic Evaluation of the Net Benefits of Hospital Volunteers

The use of volunteers in hospitals has been an age-old practice. This nonmarket community involvement is a distinctive aspect of North American life. Hospitals may be attracted to increase the use of volunteers, both to provide increased quality of care and to contain costs. Hospitals rely on the use of professional administrators to use the donated time of volunteers efficiently. This study examines the benefits and costs of volunteer programs and derives an estimate of the net value of volunteer programs that accrue to the hospitals and volunteers. In particular, the costs and benefits to hospitals are detailed. Using 31 hospitals in and around Toronto and surveying hospital volunteer administrators, hospital clinical staff members, and volunteers themselves, a striking pay-off for hospitals was found: an average of $6.84 in value from volunteers for every dollar spent—a return on investment of 684%. Civic and community participation is indeed valuable

Job Crafting as Reaction to Organizational Change

Change recipients are not just negative and passive, but positive and active shapers of organizational change; we draw on job crafting to reflect positive and proactive behaviors individuals display in their changing work environment. Drawing on job crafting and organizational change theory, this study proposes a conceptual framework that links change-specific context factors to job crafting as a form of change proactivity. These factors provide the impetus for change recipients to engage in job crafting, a relationship that is moderated by individual differences and situational factors. Job crafting is also related to organizational and individual outcomes. We test these relationships using data collected from teachers shortly after a major policy change was announced in Germany’s public education sector. This study provides new insights into the antecedents and outcomes of job crafting, while offering a positive framing of change recipients as positive and active shapers during organizational change

The Role of Social Anxiety in Volunteering

The volunteer management literature suggests that the most effective means of recruitment is personal asking. However, agencies that apply this method do not report the expected success in volunteer recruitment. Often they face the volunteer recruitment fallacy: those people assumed to be interested in volunteering do not necessarily volunteer. Based on the literature of shyness or social anxiety and on empirical observations, this article suggests that social anxiety often deters volunteering by new recruits. We hypothesize that people with greater levels of social anxiety will be less likely to volunteer. Furthermore, we hypothesize that people with high social anxiety will prefer to give monetary support to worthy causes rather than volunteer their time, and if they do choose to volunteer, they will do so alongside friends. Our hypotheses are supported based on the findings from a large-scale nonrandom sample in North America. We suggest how to avoid the volunteer recruitment fallacy by creating a personal environment in which high-social-anxiety recruits feel safe and accepted. By removing the fear of being negatively judged by strangers as they enter the agency and creating a more personal approach, new recruits may have a higher probability of becoming long-term and consistent volunteers

Comparing Neighbors: Social Service Provision by Religious Congregations in Ontario and the United States

Although religious congregations in the United States constitute a significant part of the nation\u27s safety net (Cnaan, Boddie, and Weinburg, 1999), questions still remain: are religious congregations in the United States unique in their involvement in social service provision? To answer this question, we need to compare them with congregations in countries similar to the United States. Congregational social and community involvement in the United States is attributed to several factors: the unique separation of state and church, a pluralistic ethnic society, and the market economy of religion in the United States. If these factors explain the impressive involvement of local religious congregations in helping people in need and in enhancing quality of life in the community, then we should expect similar findings regarding congregations in other countries with similar characteristics