United States

Marc Musick and John Wilson are doing some of the most interesting and useful studies of volunteer behavior today, and this current article, co-written with William Bynum, is no exception. In what is both a review of available literature and new research of their own, the authors provide a thorough and useful look at whether and how volunteering by African-Americans differs from volunteering by whites.

Among their findings and conclusions (and covering both the literature review and their own additional research):

1. "...(F)or all kinds of volunteering except the entirely secular, black volunteering is more influenced by church attendance than is white volunteering, a reflection of the more prominent role of the black church in its community...(and) among volunteers for secular activities, church attendance has a negative effect on volunteering, but only for whites."
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   • Read more about Race and Formal Volunteering: The Differential Effects of Class and Religion

e-Volunteerism enjoys making discoveries. Periodically we find material that was produced by an organization originally for in-house purposes only, but which is of such quality, uniqueness, or interest to warrant sharing more broadly. We will seek permission to reprint these "Tools You Can Use" to spark the creativity of our readers to adapt great ideas pioneered elsewhere.

In this issue, we present a notable tool for assessing how an organization ranks when it comes to diversity. This "Diversity Continuum" was developed last year by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, whom we thank for permission to publish excerpts. First, we applaud PPFA for integrating standards for volunteer diversity alongside the same standards for employee diversity! Second, we think this grid does an outstanding job of delineating different levels of diversity.

In the training of volunteers who provide direct services to clients, it is critical that volunteers have a basic understanding of the psychosocial issues faced by those they will serve. Having this knowledge prepares volunteers for successful short-term interactions, such as delivering a meal to a frail elder, or long-term relationships, such as working with a woman with breast cancer or teaching an adult to read. An understanding of a client's emotional and spiritual issues, medical and treatment issues, legal and financial issues, and family and community issues allows volunteers to feel more confident and less anxious about encountering the difficult circumstances of their clients' lives. Perhaps most importantly, a knowledge of the life situation of another enables empathy and compassion.

This article will explore the use of the "imaginary client," a case statement which is presented early, and referred to throughout the various modules of a training, and will present a module on psychosocial issues that employs this technique. This module is currently in use at Shanti, a human service organization in San Francisco, California, which has trained more than 13,000 volunteers to provide direct services to clients during the past 27 years.

With volunteering by youth at an all-time high in the United States, it is important to examine the continuum of civic action to ensure that we are creating pathways that allow more volunteers to facilitate more sustainable community change.  We must recognize that each level of participation plays a valuable role in meeting needs in our society and that volunteers may be involved in multiple points along the continuum at the same time.  However, the hectic pace of life, lack of infrastructure to more fully engage volunteers and a skepticism of policy-making in the US and worldwide result in the vast majority of volunteers being involved only sporadically.  If we do not focus our energies on providing infrastructure support, training and networks to facilitate the involvement of the 90 million volunteers in other parts of the continuum of civic action, we risk resigning ourselves to clean the same dirty rivers and tutor in the same underfunded schools year after year.

I remember trying to recruit church volunteers for regular, one-to-one visits with jail inmates. I wasn't having much luck, until I realized that my broader, "real" or "true" goal was not one-to-one visits. It was, instead, providing healthy outside contact and influence for inmates and possibly, too, friends outside when they did get out of jail. Once I realized this, it was easy to see that pairs or small groups of volunteers could visit with one inmate and achieve the same goal - maybe better. On that basis, I started getting plenty of volunteers. Good people who were probably somewhat uneasy about solo visits in an unfamiliar and quite threatening environment, could now stand "back to back," so to speak

I also remember a group trying unsuccessfully to get a grant to buy playground equipment for a community park. Finally getting un-fixated on the grant method - children can't play on grants - they realized that a combination of community fundraising and donated equipment might do the trick - and it did.

Abstract

An innovative approach to raising funds burst onto the nonprofit scene a few years back.  Entitled "new philanthropy," it has enthusiastically been adopted by fundraisers wishing to raise the level of their success.  This article proposes that those responsible for enlisting volunteers adapt a "new philanthropy" approach to recruitment. A definition of new philanthropy is presented. This is followed by a step-by-step process for employing the features of the new philanthropy to ensure a good match between volunteer and organization.

The Saguaro Seminar is a program of Harvard University that builds on the work of Robert Putnam (author of Bowling Alone: Collapse and Revival of the American Community). One of its initial activities was to conduct this national survey of almost 30,000 people, released in February 2001. This survey is the largest investigation of civic involvement ever conducted in America. The study examines a number of areas of social capital formation, including religious engagement, political and civic participation, levels of trust, giving and volunteering, and informal socializing.

Key findings of the survey follow in this article.