Voluntary contributions and wages in nonprofit organizations

Voluntary work provides a major source of labor for many nonprofit organizations. Consequences of volunteers and paid staff working alongside each other in nonprofits are well documented. This article contributes to this strand of literature and investigates whether the presence of volunteer work influences paid employees' wages in nonprofit organizations. We estimated a multilevel wage equation accounting for personal characteristics of workers and characteristics of nonprofits. The analysis revealed that nonprofit organizations engaging volunteers pay lower wages to their employees. Our findings contribute to the understanding of wage‐setting behavior of nonprofits and improve the methodological approach of empirical research in this field.     

Looking Beyond Traditional Volunteer Management: A Case Study of an Alternative Approach to Volunteer Engagement in Parks and Recreation

In an era of declining volunteerism it is critical to examine alternative approaches to volunteer management that may better promote engagement and address common barriers to volunteering. Using a “best practices” Canadian case study approach, this research describes an alternative approach to volunteer engagement that emphasizes lifestyle integration, organizational informality and flexibility, and volunteer–agency collaboration. We suggest that traditional volunteer management structures may actually be hindering engagement and call instead for a more vocation-based, networked, and collaborative approach which affords greater autonomy to the volunteer and sees power being shared between agencies and volunteers.     

Does volunteer work pay off in the labor market?

Focusing on the investment motive for volunteer work, this paper examines whether volunteer work has an economic payoff upon the labor market in France. Using a switching regression model with endogenous switching, we find that in the public sector volunteers receive a positive wage premium that does not influence their involvement, while the premium is negative in the private sector. We also find little evidence of the presence of alternative types of returns on the labor market, such as employment mobility or entry into the labor market. Our findings are more consistent with a consumption motive and we suggest that volunteering is carried out with a relational purpose.     

Brave New Volunteers? The Value of Paid and Unpaid Work for Flemish Red Cross Volunteers

This paper considers the current debate on the changing position and meaning of paid work in Western societies. In the wake of a structural crisis of fulltime employment, a new role and potential is attributed to voluntary work. With data drawn from a survey of Red Cross volunteers in Flanders (Belgium), this research assesses empirically the value volunteers attach to paid and unpaid work and their disposition to combine paid and unpaid work more flexibly. Contrary to current theorizing about the advent of a brave new world of work, this study provides evidence for a continuing existence of strong paid work orientations, even among a population that actually performs unpaid work. Moreover, it is not the economic (dis)embedding of volunteers, but the extent and nature of their social participation that primarily explains the strength of paid work orientation and the propensity to tailor paid work more flexibly to volunteer work.

Emerging volunteerism for Indonesian millennial generation: Volunteer participation and responsibility

ABSTRACT

Voluntary activities have been a part of Indonesian society since the pre-independence era until now. Volunteerism began implemented effectively in many countries after the Second World War, including in Indonesia. Currently, voluntary activities have grown in the community social life, especially volunteer involvement in the festival event. This article explores the involvement of young volunteers in the Krakatau Festival. The data were collected from the volunteers who were involved in the festivals. An ethnographic approach implemented to reveal the engagement of the individual during the event conducted. This article identifies the festival as a medium for young volunteers to strengthen self-civic virtue in the life of the millennial generation participation in the community. The result shows that young millennial generation’s activities cannot be separated from engagement with information technology, which can be used to strengthen social integration, active participation, and responsibility.     

Assigning volunteer tasks: The relation between task preferences and functional motives of youth volunteers

In this paper we aim to explore the relationship between volunteer motives and task preferences in order to provide volunteer managers with better insight in how tasks can be assigned to keep youth volunteers satisfied. Earlier seminal contributions have either taken a pure functional approach – where various types of motives are supposed to be at the base of any type of volunteer work – or a differentiated approach, where particular motives relate to specific task preferences. However, empirical results reported in the literature do not justify the preference of one approach above the other. To investigate whether one of the approaches is superior, or whether a combination of both is more appropriate, we perform a canonical correlation analysis for a set of functional motives and a set of task preferences (N = 2158). Five distinct relationships (canonical variate pairs) of motives and preferences are found. Results show that a ‘functional basis’ exists where all motives relate to a basic set of tasks. Additionally, a more differentiated approach towards volunteer motives and task preferences has to be taken, as we find four other relationships where specific motives are satisfied by assigning particular sets of tasks.     

Career professional who volunteer: Should their motives be accepted or managed?

Career professionals, such as business executives who devote their time and talents to committee work in voluntary organizations, are highly valued as volunteers. These professionals have a variety of motives for adding volunteer work to their demanding schedules. Should volunteer agency administrators accept and reward these motives indiscriminately, or should they try to mold them to conform to agency values? The answer, according to this study, is yes to both alternatives, depending on whether the aim is to improve these volunteers' attitudes or their performance.     

Voluntary work in the Norwegian long-term care sector: complementing or substituting formal services?

ABSTRACT

Across Europe, governments call for increased involvement of volunteers to shoulder some of the welfare burden. Nevertheless, there is little research into what kind of work and how much volunteers currently contribute in the long-term care services and whether this has the potential to substitute formal services. Drawing on findings from a survey of employees in Norwegian nursing homes and home care districts, we examine the nature and volume of voluntary, unpaid work in the long-term care services in Norway. Our data suggest that volunteers to a very limited degree carry out work that has traditionally been considered the formal system’s domain: personal care and practical help. Nearly all the voluntary, unpaid contributions in our data takes place within cultural, social and other activities aimed at promoting mental stimulation and well-being, indicating a classic specialisation of tasks between volunteers and professionals. However, there has been an expansion of the formal care system to include activities aimed at promoting well-being in recent decades. This may indicate that there is a certain level of task sharing between voluntary and formal care. Thus, social workers need to consider voluntary service provision when assessing the needs of clients.     

Being Volunteered? The Impact of Social Participation and Pro-Social Attitudes on Volunteering

While disagreeing over the reasons why the performance of civic obligations seems to be declining, conservatives and liberals agree that people need to be reminded of their duties as citizens for this decline to be halted. But do these exhortations work? This paper tests two theories about how people become volunteers. The “normativist” perspective assumes that volunteer behavior flows from socialization into pro-social attitudes; the “social practice” perspective stresses the formative role of practical experiences and social participation. Using a panel study of high school seniors who were reinterviewed in their mid-20s and again in their early 30s, we show that volunteer work undertaken in high school has long-term benefits as does social participation more generally but that socialization into pro-social attitudes has an even stronger influence on volunteering in middle age. The implications of our study are that mandatory community service programs can boost later volunteer efforts but that socialization into appropriate citizenship attitudes is of equal, if not greater, importance.

     

Political extremism,group membership and personality traits: who accepts violence? / Extremismo político,pertenencia al grupo y rasgos de personalidad: ¿Quién acepta la violencia?

Abstract

Identity fusion theory proposed that fused individuals have a visceral feeling of oneness with the group and this leads them to engage in radical, violent pro-group behaviours. Other approaches to group extremism link acceptance of violence to right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO). We extended previous research on fusion in three ways. First, by exploring if identity fusion is a significant predictor of the willingness to fight for a group, when controlling for group identification, left-wing authoritarianism (LWA), RWA and SDO. Secondly, we controlled for a membership in a group known for radical action directed at out-groups, namely football hooligans. Finally, we added a second outcome variable, which is the acceptance of violent change of the current social system. The participants were self-described football hooligans (N = 24) and undergraduate students (N = 155). Regression analyses revealed that the strongest predictor of willingness to defend in-group was identity fusion, with RWA and group identification significant as well. RWA and LWA emerged as the strongest predictors of acceptance of violent change. The effect of group membership wasn’t significant.     

How Do Volunteer’s Experiences of Organizational Facilitators Influence Their Satisfaction and Loyalty: An Example of Hospital Volunteers

The volunteer experience in organizational context has received far less scrutiny. Studies have indicated specific organizational settings, such as schedule flexibility, orientation and training, empowerment, social interaction, reflection, and rewards, and each has certain influences on their satisfaction and intention of remain. But we do not know their combined impact as organizational facilitators. This study focused on a sample of hospital volunteering, which occupies the largest service hours of volunteering work in Taiwan. We explored the experience of organizational facilitators that affect the satisfaction and loyalty of the volunteers from 868 valid questionnaires in a metropolitan hospital. The results showed that volunteers with more experiences on social interaction, reflections, and rewards, were more satisfied. In term of loyalty, volunteers with higher satisfaction showed higher willing to remain, recommend, accept services, and donate. Furthermore, because of flexible schedules and preferable rewards, the volunteers were more willing to remain; because of more training, higher social interaction, reflections, and rewards, the volunteers were more willing to recommend volunteering and accept services. Additionally, less flexible schedules, better empowerment, and more reflections as well as rewards influenced volunteers to be more motivated to donate. Implications of organizational efforts toward the hospital volunteer management are discussed.

     

The Relevance of Self-Determination for Corporate Volunteering Intentions

Corporate volunteering programs are increasingly used to bolster community involvement, address social issues and improve the reputation of organisations. Despite this growing trend, our understanding of what motivates corporate volunteers is scant. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates motivational differences among employees engaging in different corporate volunteering types and in independent volunteering, and examines the relationships between these volunteering types and employees’ intent to volunteer in the future. Findings obtained from a survey of 318 employees suggest that higher levels of motivation to volunteer for reasons of ego enhancement or guilt prevention (introjection) were associated with a higher likelihood of participation in employer-organised, large-scale volunteering. Lastly, compared to the other types of volunteers, corporate volunteers had the highest intentions to volunteer through their company in the future, while independent volunteers had the highest intentions to continue volunteering in their own time without employer support. These results highlight the importance of offering various types of corporate volunteering opportunities to employees, as people engaging in corporate volunteering do not make up a homogeneous group, and that different corporate volunteering activities fulfil different motivational needs.

     

Making Sense of Organizational Change: Voices of Older Volunteers

The role of voluntary and community sector organizations in the delivery of public services is increasing and these changes bring new responsibilities and benefits to organizations that have the capacity to participate. There are concerns within the sector about the implications for citizenship and participation. The sector is highly dependent on volunteers yet little is known about how organizational change in response to new relationships with the statutory sector impact upon the commitment and well-being of people who volunteer. This paper addresses that gap in knowledge for older volunteers. Drawing upon collaborative research with a voluntary organization in the north of England, the authors explore the meanings and aspirations of volunteering for older people, and explain how and why changes associated with closer engagement with public service delivery and less grant dependency can be disempowering for them.

The Interactive Effects of Job Resources and Motivations to Volunteer Among a Sample of Italian Volunteers

The examination of organizational features of voluntary associations and their effects on the experiences of volunteers traditionally received less attention than other topics. This paper aimed to examine how different features as social and task support, information and appreciation affect volunteers’ experiences in terms of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and intention to remain. Moreover, potential moderating effects by motivations to volunteer in relation to the abovementioned relations were tested. Through the use of a self-report questionnaire, distributed among 162 Italian voluntary associations (final sample of 1,445 volunteers), structural equation modeling (SEM), and moderated-SEM were carried out to verify hypothesized associations and potential moderations. Job resources were associated with the three outcomes, moreover many moderating effects by the values/understanding and career motivations were found. The results were commented on the basis of the current literature, and some practical suggestions were drawn about voluntary associations’ management and volunteers’ recruitment and selection.     

Being a pretty good citizen: an analysis and monetary valuation of formal and informal voluntary work by gender and educational attainment

This paper is set in the context of macrosocial/macroeconomic theories of the organization of both paid and unpaid work. The specific topic investigated is engagement in unpaid voluntary work, an activity which is thought to be important for social cohesion, civil society and citizenship. Research on the sources of social cohesion has focused on organizational membership and voluntary organization activity. There has been little investigation of informal helping of non-resident kin, friends or acquaintances, an activity which is not measured in most social surveys but is measured in time use surveys. Previous research shows that the highly educated are more likely to engage in formal voluntary organizations and data from the UK 2000 HETUS survey confirm that the highly educated spend more time on formally organised voluntary work. However, the less qualified, particularly women, spend more time on extra-household unpaid helping activities. Since both types of voluntary work are partly dependent on available time, these findings are modelled adjusting for time allocated to paid work, study, family and personal care. The findings remain statistically significant. Drawing on work carried out by the Office for National Statistics, a monetary value is placed on both formally organized and informal voluntary work. Although the median wage rates for formal voluntary work are greater than those for informal helping, the latter is greater in frequency and duration and therefore more economically valuable from a population perspective. This finding is discussed in the light of recent debates on citizenship and gender.     

Skills-Based Volunteering as Both Work and Not Work: A Tension-Centered Examination of Constructions of “Volunteer”

The Corporation for National and Community Service defines professional skills-based community service as “the practice of using work-related knowledge and expertise in a volunteer opportunity.” Traditional definitions of volunteer work in organizational communication scholarship, however, are typically based on (1) the bifurcation between work and volunteer activity; (2) low barriers to volunteer entry and exit; (3) the lack of managerial power/control over volunteers; and (4) the altruistic focus of volunteer work. An analysis of interviews with 19 skills-based volunteers highlights the identity and role tensions inherent in professional volunteering and serves as the basis for a proposal for a new way to visualize volunteering characterized by spectrums of tension rather than by the traditional lens of “not work.”     

Social workers as mediators

Abstract

This paper discusses the significant contribution social workers have to make to the growing field of mediation and alternative dispute resolution. The theories and practice skills of social work have major relevance to mediation. A sound generic social work education, combined with specialist study in mediation and alternative dispute resolution, ensures that social workers are well prepared for practice as mediators.     

Organizational Factors Affecting Volunteers: A Literature Review on Volunteer Coordination

While volunteer literature presents diverse insights into the motives, personal dispositions, and sociodemographic characteristics of volunteers, researches comparatively seldom focus on the incentives and organizational context affecting volunteers. This review aims to shed light on the organizational factors affecting volunteers collectively and to discuss the coordination of volunteers. Systematic research of the literature revealed 386 publications that are relevant to volunteer coordination. Their abstracts were analyzed in a process of open and selective coding, which led to the identification of three main clusters. This literature review produced the following propositions: it is argued that the practices and instruments of volunteer management (Cluster 1), and, even more strongly, the organizational attitudes towards volunteers as well as the organizations’ embedded values (Cluster 2), co-determined by social processes (integration and production of meaning), are crucial factors affecting volunteers. The review also deals with structural features that limit the action space of volunteers and volunteer coordination (Cluster 3). It concludes by discussing the limitations present in the current volunteer research and provides implications for future research endeavors. Thus, this piece of work presents a holistic view on volunteer coordination and theory building by carefully synthesizing information about the organizational context of volunteering from different disciplines and research traditions, resulting in different intervention logics, and by integrating these data in an analytical framework.     

Union Worker Wage Effect in the Public Sector

This study examines union wage premiums in the public sector for the 1998–2004 period. Unlike previous studies, our approach estimates union wage premiums considering differences in the rewards to education, experience, and other personal characteristics for union and non-union workers. The approach provides a larger estimated wage gap than the traditional approach, and allows for simulations of union–nonunion wage gaps for different types of workers. Moreover, we use an Oaxaca decomposition to explain the larger union–nonunion wage gap in the private sector in comparison to that in the public sector. We find that between 50% and 60% of the difference in union wage premiums between the private and public sectors is due to differences in the way unionized workers are rewarded in the private and public sectors, while the remaining portion is due to differences in personal characteristics of private and public sector workers.

HIV/AIDS and Home Based Care in Botswana

SUMMARY

The extent of the AIDS pandemic in Africa (and specifically in Botswana), and the lack of institutional frameworks to address concomitant issues, have necessitated the adoption of home based care for sufferers as national policy. The practice is beset by problems, given the severe symptomatic nature of the disease and the general lack of human and material resources to address the needs of patients and care-givers.

A study of one such programme in the Kweneng District of Botswana highlighted gender imbalances, poverty, lack of appropriate skills, over-involvement of the elderly, deficient specialised facilities, need for volunteer capacity building, inadequate income generating activities, insufficient counseling services, and culturally determined cognitive processes as areas requiring urgent attention. It is apparent that the programme needs strengthening through appropriate support mechanisms and that alternative strategies should be devised for those whose circumstances demand them.

The international hospice movement, represented in Botswana, exemplifies a philosophical and service model for multisectoral consideration and implementation on a nationwide scale. The article discusses, inter alia, day care centres and residential units for the terminally ill; a system of highly trained volunteers to work with patients and their families; consistent, skilled nursing services in home based care situations; and halfway houses for training of care-givers as possible solutions to the problem.

The contextualization of such measures will undoubtedly assist in bolstering Botswana's unchallenged record of high standards in governance and social development.