How To Keep Volunteers Motivated

1. Introduction

Volunteerism and volunteer work represent important ways in which individuals can contribute to society at large (Clary, Snyder, Copeland, & French, 1994). Volunteers have become a valuable set of human resources in many sectors of society.

Many different kinds of people with many different motivations engage in volunteer work. Consequently, questions of why individual spend their time volunteering, what volunteers like and dislike about volunteer programs, how volunteer motivations and preferences change, and why volunteers drop have made program managers and volunteer coordinators strive to answer for some time.

Some volunteer work is similar to paid work in that it involves performing defined tasks for specified time periods within the context of a formal organization (for instance, an individual volunteering to staff the gift shop in a hospital for two mornings a week). This type of activity is typically referred to as formal volunteering. A broader definition of volunteering also includes work that is done to assist friends, neighbors, and family members outside the household. Such informal volunteering differs in structure and organization from formal volunteering, but it may be quite similar in content (Wilson, 1997).

2. Why People Volunteer?

Wilson J. (2000) suggests that pro-volunteer attitudes or dispositions may be related to early life experiences, including participation in volunteer activities as a youth and having parents who promoted volunteerism and helping others. The importance of experiences earlier in life, reporting higher than average rates of volunteering among those who had previously volunteered and those who had seen someone they admired volunteering. As an activity directed toward individuals with whom one has personal contact such as family, friends, or neighbors, informal volunteering is considered to be motivated in part by affection or commitment to those individuals. Motivations to volunteer include...