Growing the Volunteer Pool: Identifying Non-Volunteers Most Likely to Volunteer

There are ongoing management and societal challenges affecting volunteering participation. These place a premium on organizations identifying individuals that currently do not volunteer but have the willingness and capacity to do so, the “Potentials”. Supplementing the limited non-volunteer literature, we seek to quantify this potential volunteer pool using constructs aligned to the willingness, capability and availability dimensions from Meijs et al.’s (Volunt Action 8:36–54, 2006) volunteerability framework. Using binary logistic regression testing with a nationally representative sample of Australian volunteers and non-volunteers, we found partial support for the framework’s willingness and capability dimensions determining volunteer status. We then applied a predictive equation to the non-volunteer sample to calculate their percentage likelihood of volunteering, to identify a cohort of “Potential” volunteers. Further testing revealed statistically significant differences between this cohort compared to other non-volunteers based on various interventions for promoting volunteering. The implications of our novel study and an associated research agenda are discussed.

     

The Evolution of Housing Typologies for Older Adults in The Netherlands From 1945 to 2016: An Analysis in the Context of Policy,Societal, and Technological Developments

This study aims to examine housing typologies for older adults in the light of three qualitatively examined exogenous factors: policy, societal developments, and technology. The developments in inpatient and assisted ambulatory housing facilities for older adults have been mapped from 1945 to 2016 using quantitative data. Using these data, five transition periods can be distinguished. Within the first transition periods, policy factors were tremendously important, while within the later ones, societal influence empowered by technological change became the primarily driving factor. This research shows that the classification of inpatient, assisted ambulatory housing, and outpatient housing may no longer be applicable in its current form.     

Social Ills in Rich Countries: New Evidence on Levels,Causes, and Mediators

Social Indicators Research - The income inequality hypothesis claims that in rich societies inequality causes a range of health and social problems (henceforth: social ills), e.g. because economic...     

Imagined past,present and futures in Murray–Darling Basin communities

Over the past three decades, irrigation-dependent rural communities in Australia's Murray–Darling Basin have experienced profound economic, social and environmental changes, which they are attempting to accommodate through local government policy. As a contribution to participatory policy design research, in consultation with local governments we carried out focus groups to explore diversity of individuals’ imagined past and present in two rural communities. This was followed by group development of a diverse range of future scenarios and agreement to three likely scenarios. The research identified presence or absence of three underlying themes – irrigation, innovation and inflow of people – that plausibly drive change in these rural communities. These themes are likely to be common to many rural communities that have depended on irrigated agriculture. They provide an example of participatory policy-making, as distinct from the historically employed top-down policy development that has occurred in the Murray–Darling Basin. Because of the diversity of perceptions of past, present and futures, and the ultimate adoption of business-as-usual within the final local government plans, the research emphasises the need to put effort into community deliberations to build cohesion and share ownership of the process for delivering locally nuanced community policy.     

Investing to Protect Our Children: Using Economics to Derive an Evidence‐based Strategy

Child abuse and neglect are global problems that affect over 25 per cent of children and have serious health, social and economic consequences. Government and other agencies are heavily committed to the provision of services to address the consequences of abuse and neglect. In a climate of scarce resources, there is increasing interest in developing cost‐effective strategies to prevent child maltreatment. Economic evaluation in the context of formal ‘priority setting’ can contribute to the development of an efficient child protection strategy and at the same time develop the arguments to support an increased investment in the prevention of child maltreatment. Key challenges arise from incompleteness of the evidence base of effective interventions and the considerable complexity of the cross‐portfolio effects. The latter has resulted in the widespread failure to capture the full range of impacts, most notably intergenerational effects, quality of life and mortality. This means the benefits of investing in effective preventive strategies to address child maltreatment will be underestimated and too few resources allocated to this important task. Adoption of the proposed priority‐setting framework and translation into action are likely to reduce child maltreatment and associated harms for children at risk now and in the future. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Citing Literature

Number of times cited: 7

• Inga Wagenknecht, Uta Meier-Gräwe and Ute Ziegenhain , Kosten und Nutzen Früher Hilfen - aktuelle Erkenntnisse und zukünftiger Forschungsbedarf/ Economic efficiency of early intervention – current findings and future need for research , Kindesmisshandlung und -vernachlässigung , 18 , 1 , (10) , (2015) . Crossref
• Nicole RS Boyer, Kathleen A Boyd, Fiona Turner-Halliday, Nicholas Watson and Helen Minnis , Examining the feasibility of an economic analysis of dyadic developmental psychotherapy for children with maltreatment associated psychiatric problems in the United Kingdom , BMC Psychiatry , 14 , 1 , (2014) . Crossref
• Madeleine Stevens, Lucy Harris, Megan Ellis, Crispin Day and Jennifer Beecham , Investigating changes in use of services by high‐need families following the Helping Families Programme, an innovative parenting intervention for children with severe and persistent conduct problems , Child and Adolescent Mental Health , 19 , 3 , (185-191) , (2013) . Wiley Online Library
• Madeleine Stevens , The cost-effectiveness of UK parenting programmes for preventing children's behaviour problems - a review of the evidence , Child & Family Social Work , 19 , 1 , (109) , (2014) . Crossref
• Sarah Skeen and Mark Tomlinson , A public health approach to preventing child abuse in low- and middle-income countries: A call for action , International Journal of Psychology , 48 , 2 , (108) , (2013) . Crossref
• Peter Sidebotham , Safeguarding in an Age of Austerity , Child Abuse Review , 21 , 5 , (313-317) , (2012) . Wiley Online Library
• , Public Health Approaches to Safeguarding Children , Child Abuse Review , 20 , 4 , (231-237) , (2011) . Wiley Online Library

Volume 20 , Issue 4 July/August 2011

Pages 274-289     

Drivers of biodiversity patterns in parks of a growing South American megacity

How urban habitats contribute to biodiversity conservation is a key challenge in a rapidly urbanising world. Urban parks can provide important habitats for native species, but previous studies are geographically biased; fast growing megacities, in particular in South America, are clearly understudied. To assess habitat functions and underlying drivers in parks of Santiago de Chile, we analysed the assemblages of wild growing plant species in two ubiquitous park habitat types (grasslands, wooded areas) in 15 parks (150 plots) along an urban-rural gradient. We first used linear contrasts to compare species richness, beta diversity and the proportion of introduced species. We then tested for the explanatory value of environmental variables operating at different spatial scales (plot, park, urban matrix). Unlike in most previous studies, biodiversity patterns were not related to the position of the parks on the urban-rural gradient. Introduced species, mostly from Europe, generally dominated both habitat types (>90 %). Socio-economic (population growth or density), but not spatial, variables were retained in most models. Maintenance intensity was most influential in predicting species assemblages, complemented by park age in wooded areas. A high proportion of European grassland species indicates a trend of homogenisation in park grassland at a cross-continental scale. We conclude that habitat functions of urban parks for native species that have been mainly demonstrated for Europe cannot be generalised to South American megacities. This highlights the need for innovative and locally appropriate conservation approaches (e.g., re-introduction of native species) to foster biodiversity functions in urban parks of South American megacities.     

Furthering Pluralism? The German Foundations in Transitional Tunisia

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article examines the widely held assumption that Germany’s political foundations pursue distinctively partisan...     

Specification testing in nonparametric AR‐ARCH models

In this paper, an autoregressive time series model with conditional heteroscedasticity is considered, where both conditional mean and conditional variance function are modeled nonparametrically. Tests for the model assumption of independence of innovations from past time series values are suggested. Tests based on weighted L²‐distances of empirical characteristic functions are considered as well as a Cramér–von Mises‐type test. The asymptotic distributions under the null hypothesis of independence are derived, and the consistency against fixed alternatives is shown. A smooth autoregressive residual bootstrap procedure is suggested, and its performance is shown in a simulation study.