In this very personal Voices, join a conversation with Agnetta Nyalita as she takes you through her journey as a young African promoting volunteerism in her home in Kenya and across Africa. Nyalita will share stories of the struggles and progress made on the continent, how her quest affected her personal and career development, and how her efforts connect to the global landscape.
Barwon Health, the largest and most comprehensive regional health services in Australia, concluded several years ago that its 1,000 volunteers were ready and able to improve the health of their community. So in February 2014, the health service implemented a Volunteer Training and Development program that provided volunteers with opportunities to expand their healthcare knowledge, participate more concretely in the health service's mission, and ultimately build an empowered, healthy, and sustainable volunteer base for the future.
In this e-Volunteerism feature, Barwon Health’s Lyn Stack writes that “by investing in our volunteers through health knowledge, we utilise their support to directly improve the health and wellness of our community, while also providing volunteers with opportunities to increase confidence and decrease fear of entering the health sector.” Stack describes how the program has expanded in two years to include Australia’s first Volunteer Health and Wellness Calendar, a Healthy Living Ambassadors program, and a national public awareness campaign to help volunteers expand their own health awareness to others. “By sharing this program,” Stack writes, “we can empower all volunteer leaders to invest in and reward their volunteers through the power of knowledge.”
Volunteer stress is an important topic. While there are a good number of studies looking at this in terms of implications for the volunteer’s health and well-being, this quarter’s Research to Practice reviews exploratory research that analyzes the issue from an organizational perspective. Gathered from a sample of attendees at the Australian National Volunteering Conference in 2013, the data provides insights into sources and causes of volunteer stress, organizational responses, and desired organizational support.
And there’s good news: according to this exploratory study, a “wide range of volunteer stressors” appear to be “firmly within the purview of organizations to manage and ameliorate.”
This quarter’s Research to Practice reviews an article that presents a way to measure the social returns on investment in volunteer recruiting, training, and management. Called Social Return on Investment, or SROI, it is a type of cost-benefit analysis that compares the present value of social outcomes created by the organization to the value of monetary and in-kind resources (including volunteer contributions) required to generate those outcomes.
As reviewer Laurie Mook explains, funders and government agencies have expressed great interest in the idea of calculating SROIs for organizations. Mook looks specifically at a case study by Italian researchers who apply this process to the volunteer program of a summer camp that offers recreational therapy for children with serious illnesses. The researchers end up with a SROI calculated as a ratio between the total present value of impacts on volunteers as well as on services, and the total costs of inputs required to recruit, train, and manage volunteers. Mook also examines the methodology as a potential tool to focus attention on the socio-economic impact created by organizations, for volunteers themselves, and for society-at-large.
Understanding the health benefits of volunteering for older adults can provide multiple opportunities for increasing the impact of nonprofit organizations, and the quality of life generally in our communities. From a volunteer management perspective, this has implications for recruitment, retention, and reporting.
In this Research to Practice, reviewer Laurie Mook looks at an analysis of 73 peer-reviewed articles on the benefits associated with volunteering among the growing demographic of older adults. The goal of the meta-analysis was to acquire a comprehensive view of how formal volunteering might protect against cognitive decline and dementia. Although many activities provide social, physical, and cognitive opportunities for older adults that have been shown to result in health-related benefits, volunteerism has an added dimension: altruism. Here we explore how strategic volunteer management can add to making a difference.
Volunteer for four hours and get a free concert ticket. Volunteer for 100 hours and get a tax rebate. Or volunteer for 500 hours to organize a gala fundraising dinner, but pay for your own admission ticket to eat.Do we need to offer incentives to people to get them to volunteer? Are incentives simply a nice form of recognition or do they corrode the fundamental importance of volunteering as altruism? When do we ignore the money volunteers spend on top of giving time?
There has long been debate about the effectiveness of offering money, significant gifts, and other perks to stimulate volunteer recruitment. After outlining the problem, Susan J. Ellis and Rob Jackson return to the original Points of View format of “She says/He says” to highlight both sides of the issue.
“Yes!” argues Ellis. “Incentives sometimes make sense.”
“No!” counters Jackson. “We should not incentivize volunteering.”
In presenting their arguments, the authors highlight some difficult gray areas concerning the issue. And they both agree to keep in mind that “empowered, self-confident volunteers” deserve respect when the subject of incentivizing bubbles to the top.
The production of and trade in celebrity is now a commercial strategy for all types of media organizations, resulting in a significant expansion in celebrity content across all platforms. Charitable events and activities are no exception, with one crucial difference to their commercial counterparts: most charities that engage celebrities recruit them on a voluntary basis, and don’t pay them. Celebrity patrons ranging from reality TV contestants and soap stars to sporting heroes and members of the Royal family volunteer to raise awareness and funds, attend events, and provide a powerful focus for appeals and campaigns. Publications such as Third Section offer weekly updates on the latest celebrities to lend their support.
But what motivates celebrity supporters to volunteer their services? What methods of engagement do celebrities prefer? These are just a few of the questions asked and answered in this feature story by Sean Kelly, an expert on celebrity volunteer engagement and the director of fundraising at Sparks, the UK’s leading pediatric medical research charity. In this article, Kelly presents his study of over 200 celebrities and his research to ascertain personal motivations for celebrities who volunteer and why they support particular organizations. Altruism? Egotism? Kelly provides the answers and pulls back the proverbial curtain on the star power of celebrity volunteers.
Many of us, especially readers of this journal, have long defied the skeptics and believed that volunteering has multiple benefits. Now there is growing research to prove that volunteering is good for society as a whole and that it needs to be nurtured and fostered.
In this Along the Web, we round up some of the emerging research that explores the impact of volunteering as a producer of social capital and well-being that goes beyond any individual volunteer, agency or organization. Benefits for individual volunteers – such as skill development or building personal confidence – are of course very well-known and documented. But as this article shows, there is a fascinating evidence base developing that also strengthens the case for encouraging more volunteers and better, more widespread volunteer programs. The timing is perfect. Just as policy makers and funders of volunteer programs increasingly want to know that their actions or investments will be effective over the longer term, the research linking volunteering to social capital and well-being is emerging.
There was a time when the word “intern” was used mainly for doctors-in-training. Over the last 50 years, however, the concept has widened to include many different experiences in nonprofit, government and for-profit settings. Some internships are formal requirements through university courses, while others are totally individual to the intern and the host organization. Some are paid (medical interns are considered staff), others are remunerated through stipends or living expenses, and many are totally volunteer and unpaid.
Right now there is growing opposition to unpaid internships in the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere. Opponents are quite vocal and have gained allies among labor unions and some politicians, taking their cause to the courts in an attempt to control internships or ban them outright. Among other things, these opponents state that internships: exploit the young adults seeking them; do not provide the training or professional development often promised; exclude those from low-income backgrounds who cannot afford to volunteer and forgo compensation; and benefit the recipient sponsors in ways that skirt labor and tax laws.
At the same, the volunteer field has grabbed onto the concept of internships as a great way to attract a wide range of new volunteers into roles with status and co-worker respect.
Which side is right? What – if anything – is clear cut and what is muddied or muddled? In this Points of View, authors Rob Jackson and Susan J. Ellis debate the issues and nuances of the internship dilemma.