Volunteer Work Design

In work-oriented societies, it can be confusing when people do something for no remuneration when that ‘something’ appears to be neither part of their livelihood nor part of their leisure. In simplest terms, the question asked by the average person in such societies is: Why work if there is no money to be made or, at the very least, nothing to be paid in kind?

In this article, Robert A. Stebbins, a noted author and college professor who specializes in the sociology of work and leisure, argues that volunteers’ activities are leisure, and that volunteers do sometimes receive money, goods or services for their efforts. Granted, these benefits can seem inconsistent with the altruistic, selfless character of volunteering that is widely held to be its very essence. The goal of this article is to examine the subtleties that revolve around being paid in money or in kind to perform a volunteer role, and to examine when this happens, what form it takes and why it occurs.

Volunteer manager Laura Hamilton knew there had to be a better way to manage and schedule volunteers at George House Trust, the largest HIV Social Care Charity in the North West of England. So when her organization began to review rota management software packages to help manage volunteer rotations, she stumbled upon a solution that surprised her: SurveyMonkey, an online tool for collecting data for volunteer surveys. "Whilst exploring how it worked," Hamilton writes, "it struck me that with a bit of tweaking, we could set up a form which, rather than collecting feedback or evaluation data, would allow people to tell us their availability and sign up for shifts."  In this e-Volunteerism feature, Hamilton reviews her experience with SurveyMonkey as a rota tool, and explains why "it really has changed my life!"

Despite all the theory and research about Generation Y — those individuals typically born between 1977 and 1997 — there still appears to be a considerable amount of confusion as to how volunteer managers can effectively engage this generation. Could this confusion stem from not clearly understanding the key factors that shape the lives and thinking of Gen Y? Author Catherine Williams thinks so. In this feature article, Williams reviews how effective engagement with today’s young adults involves moving beyond the hype associated with this generation and developing a deeper understanding of what shapes the lives of our younger generations. By sharing the stories of a few Gen Y individuals (also called Millennials), Williams presents some important lessons about why young people are not engaging in traditional volunteer roles. She also looks at the implications for volunteer management practices, and explores some of the changes that volunteer managers may need to consider in order to make volunteering relevant to this generation.

In these incredibly difficult economic times, there is perhaps one silver lining: volunteer resources.  For those organizations wise enough to seize it, the economic crisis can be viewed as an opportunity to take advantage of the skills and ambitions that today’s volunteers have to offer.  This Training Design can be used to guide volunteer leaders in exploring the challenges and opportunities of volunteer management during economic distress. Participants in the training  learn six strategies to capitalize on volunteer resources during tough times. The result?  A win-win for both organizations and volunteers.