![Two lifeguards of the German DLRG patrolling bathing area of a lake on stand-up paddling boards](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Two_lifeguards_of_the_German_DLRG_patrolling_bathing_area_of_a_lake_on_stand-up_paddling_boards.jpg)
Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group
freely giving time and labor for
community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...
,
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
, or
emergency rescue. Others serve on an as-needed basis, such as in response to a
natural disaster
A natural disaster is "the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community". A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves some econ ...
.
Etymology and history
The verb was first recorded in 1755. It was derived from the noun ''volunteer'', in 1600, "one who offers himself for military service," from the
Middle French
Middle French (french: moyen français) is a historical division of the French language that covers the period from the 14th to the 16th century. It is a period of transition during which:
* the French language became clearly distinguished from t ...
''voluntaire''.
In the non-military sense, the word was first recorded during the 1630s. The word ''volunteering'' has more recent usage—still predominantly military—coinciding with the phrase ''community service''.
In a military context, a
volunteer army
The Volunteer Army (russian: Добровольческая армия, translit=Dobrovolcheskaya armiya, abbreviated to russian: Добрармия, translit=Dobrarmiya) was a White Army active in South Russia during the Russian Civil War from ...
is a military body whose soldiers chose to enter service, as opposed to having been conscripted. Such volunteers do not work "for free" and are given regular pay.
19th century
During this time, America experienced the
Great Awakening
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the late ...
. People became aware of the disadvantaged and realized the cause for movement against slavery. In 1851, the first
YMCA
YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...
in the United States was started, followed seven years later by the first
YWCA
The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries.
The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...
. During the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, women volunteered their time to sew supplies for the soldiers and the "Angel of the Battlefield"
Clara Barton
Clarissa Harlowe Barton (December 25, 1821 – April 12, 1912) was an American nurse who founded the American Red Cross. She was a hospital nurse in the American Civil War, a teacher, and a patent clerk. Since nursing education was not then very ...
and a team of volunteers began providing aid to servicemen. Barton founded the
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...
in 1881 and began mobilizing volunteers for disaster relief operations, including relief for victims of the
Johnstown Flood in 1889.
20th and 21st centuries
![StateLibQld 1 165995 Ithaca influenza epidemic workers, July 1919](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/StateLibQld_1_165995_Ithaca_influenza_epidemic_workers%2C_July_1919.jpg)
The
Salvation Army
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
is one of the oldest and largest organizations working for disadvantaged people. Though it is a
charity organization, it has organized a number of volunteering programs since its inception.
Prior to the 19th century, few formal charitable organizations existed to assist people in need.
In the first few decades of the 20th century, several volunteer organizations were founded, including the
Rotary International
Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, prof ...
,
Kiwanis International
Kiwanis International ( ) is an international service club founded in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. It is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, and is found in more than 80 nations and geographic areas. Since 1987, the organizatio ...
,
Association of Junior Leagues International
The Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc. (Junior League or JL) is a private, nonprofit educational women's volunteer organization aimed at improving communities and the social, cultural, and political fabric of civil society. With ...
, and
Lions Clubs International.
The Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
saw one of the first large-scale, nationwide efforts to coordinate volunteering for a specific need. During World War II, thousands of volunteer offices supervised the volunteers who helped with the many needs of the military and the
home front
Home front is an English language term with analogues in other languages. It is commonly used to describe the full participation of the British public in World War I who suffered Zeppelin#During World War I, Zeppelin raids and endured Rationin ...
, including collecting supplies, entertaining soldiers on leave, and caring for the injured.
After
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, people shifted the focus of their altruistic passions to other areas, including helping the poor and volunteering overseas. A major development was the
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
in the United States in 1960. When President
Lyndon B. Johnson declared a ''War on Poverty'' in 1964, volunteer opportunities started to expand and continued into the next few decades. The process for finding volunteer work became more formalized, with more volunteer centers forming and new ways to find work appearing on the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...
through organizations like
JustServe and
AmeriCorps
AmeriCorps (officially the Corporation for National and Community Service or CNCS) is an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work prog ...
.
![Kennedy greeting Peace Corps volunteers, 1961](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Kennedy_greeting_Peace_Corps_volunteers%2C_1961.jpg)
According to the Corporation for National and Community Service (in 2012), about 64.5 million Americans, or 26.5 percent of the adult population, gave 7.9 billion hours of volunteer service worth $175 billion. This calculates at about 125–150 hours per year or 3 hours per week at a rate of $22 per hour. Volunteer hours in the UK are similar; the data for other countries is unavailable.
Types
Volunteering as utilized by service learning programs
Many schools on all education levels offer
service-learning programs, which allow students to serve the community through volunteering while earning educational credit.
According to Alexander Astin in the foreword to ''Where's the Learning in Service-Learning?'' by Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, Jr.,"...we promote more wide-spread adoption of service-learning in higher education because we see it as a powerful means of preparing students to become more caring and responsible parents and citizens and of helping colleges and universities to make good on their pledge to 'serve society.'"
When describing service learning, the Medical Education at Harvard says, "Service learning unites academic study and volunteer community service in mutually reinforcing ways. ...service learning is characterized by a relationship of partnership: the student learns from the service agency and from the community and, in return, gives energy, intelligence, commitment, time and skills to address human and community needs."
Volunteering in service learning seems to have the result of engaging both mind and heart, thus providing a more powerful learning experience; according to Janet Eyler and Dwight E. Giles, it succeeds by the fact that it "...fosters student development by capturing student interest..."
More recent scholarship has found shortcomings in the early assumptions of mutual benefit, since early studies were interested in educational benefits rather than community outcomes. An Indiana study found that the nonprofit agencies hosting student service-learners do not report a positive impact on service capacity, although service-learners do help to increase agency visibility. In the end, service-learning must follow other principles of effective volunteer management such as screening, training, and supervising.
Skills-based volunteering
''Skills-based volunteering'' is leveraging the specialized skills and the talents of individuals to strengthen the infrastructure of nonprofits, helping them build and sustain their capacity to successfully achieve their missions. This is in contrast to traditional volunteering, where volunteers do something other than their professional work. The average hour of traditional volunteering is valued by the Independent Sector at between $18–20 an hour. Skills-based volunteering is valued at $40–500 an hour, depending on the market value of the time.
Virtual volunteering
Also called ''e-volunteering'' or ''online volunteering'', virtual volunteering is a volunteer who completes tasks, in whole or in part, offsite from the organization being assisted. They use the Internet and a home, school,
telecenter
A telecentre is a public place where people can access computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies that enable them to gather information, create, learn, and communicate with others while they develop essential digital skills. Telecent ...
or work computer, or other Internet-connected device, such as a
PDA
PDA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Patron-driven acquisition, a mechanism for libraries to purchase books
*Personal digital assistant, a mobile device
* Photodiode array, a type of detector
* Polydiacetylenes, a family of conducting poly ...
or
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
. Virtual volunteering is also known as cyber service, telementoring, and teletutoring, as well as various other names. Virtual volunteering is similar to
remote work
Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...
, except that instead of online employees who are paid, these are online volunteers who are not paid. Contributing to
free and open source software
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...
projects or editing
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...
are examples of virtual volunteering.
Micro-volunteering
Micro-volunteering is a task performed via an internet-connected device. An individual typically does this task in small, un-paid increments of time. Micro-volunteering is distinct from "virtual volunteering" in that it typically does not require the individual volunteer to go through an application process, screening process, or training period.
Environmental volunteering
Environmental volunteering refers to the volunteers who contribute towards environmental management or conservation. Volunteers conduct a range of activities including environmental monitoring, ecological restoration such as re-vegetation and weed removal, protecting endangered animals, and educating others about the natural environment.
Volunteering in an emergency
![FEMA - 15322 - Photograph by Andrea Booher taken on 09-05-2005 in Texas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/FEMA_-_15322_-_Photograph_by_Andrea_Booher_taken_on_09-05-2005_in_Texas.jpg)
Volunteering often plays a pivotal role in the recovery effort following natural disasters, such as tsunamis, floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes. For example, the 1995
Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake
The , or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 Korea Standard Time, JST (January 16 at 20:46:53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin (disambiguation), Hanshin. It measu ...
in Japan was a watershed moment, bringing in many first-time
volunteers for earthquake response. The
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...
attracted a large number of volunteers worldwide, deployed by
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
s, government agencies, and the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
.
During the 2012 hurricane Sandy emergency,
Occupy Sandy volunteers formed a ''laterally organized rapid-response team'' that provided much needed help during and after the storm, from food to shelter to reconstruction. It is an example of
mutualism at work, pooling resources and assistance and leveraging social media.
Volunteering in schools
Resource poor schools around the world rely on government support or on efforts from volunteers and private donations, in order to run effectively. In some countries, whenever the economy is down, the need for volunteers and resources increases greatly. There are many opportunities available in school systems for volunteers. Yet, there are not many requirements in order to volunteer in a school system. Whether one is a high school or TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) graduate or college student, most schools require just voluntary and selfless effort.
Much like the benefits of any type of volunteering there are great rewards for the volunteer, student, and school. In addition to intangible rewards, volunteers can add relevant experience to their resumes. Volunteers who travel to assist may learn foreign culture and language.
Volunteering in schools can be an additional teaching guide for the students and help to fill the gap of local teachers. Cultural and language exchange during teaching and other school activities can be the most essential learning experience for both students and volunteers.
Corporate volunteering
Benefacto, a volunteering brokerage, describe corporate volunteering as "Companies giving their employees an allowance of paid time off annually, which they use to volunteer at a charity of their choice."
A majority of the companies at the
Fortune 500
The ''Fortune'' 500 is an annual list compiled and published by ''Fortune'' magazine that ranks 500 of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for their respective fiscal years. The list includes publicly held companies, along ...
allow their employees to volunteer during work hours. These formalized Employee Volunteering Programs (EVPs), also called Employer Supported Volunteering (ESV), are regarded as a part of the companies' sustainability efforts and their social responsibility activities. About 40% of Fortune 500 companies provide monetary
donations, also known as
volunteer grant
Volunteer grants are charitable gifts given to non-profit organizations by corporations in recognition of volunteer work being done by a company's employees. This practice is widespread in the United States.
Corporate giving programs created to e ...
s, to nonprofits as a way to recognize employees who dedicate significant amounts of time to volunteering in the community.
According to the information from
VolunteerMatch
Impact Online, also known as VolunteerMatch, is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization which provides a national digital infrastructure to serve volunteers and nonprofit organization in America. VolunteerMatch was founded in 1998.
The organization al ...
, a service that provides Employee Volunteering Program solutions, the key drivers for companies that produce and manage EVPs are building
brand awareness
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model. Brand awareness is a key consi ...
and affinity, strengthening trust and loyalty among consumers, enhancing
corporate image
A corporate identity or corporate image is the manner in which a corporation, firm or business enterprise presents itself to the public (such as customers and investors as well as employees). The corporate identity is typically visualized by ...
and reputation, improving
employee retention, increasing
employee productivity and loyalty, and providing an effective vehicle to reach strategic goals.
In April 2015, David Cameron pledged to give all UK workers employed by companies with more 250 staff mandatory three days' paid volunteering leave, which if implemented will generate an extra 360 million volunteering hours a year.
Community volunteer work
Community volunteering, in the US called "
community service", refers globally to those who work to improve their local community. This activity commonly occurs through not for profit organizations, local governments and churches; but also encompasses ad-hoc or informal groups such as recreational sports teams.
Social volunteering or welfare volunteering
In some European countries government organisations and non-government organisations provide auxiliary positions for a certain period in institutions like hospitals, schools, memorial sites and welfare institutions. The difference to other types of volunteering is that there are strict legal regulations, what organisation is allowed to engage volunteers and about the period a volunteer is allowed to work in a voluntary position. Due to that fact, the volunteer is getting a limited amount as a pocket money from the government. Organizations having the biggest manpower in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
are the
Voluntary social year (German: ''Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr''), with more than 50.000 volunteers per year, and the
Federal volunteers service (German: ''Bundesfreiwilligendienst''), with about 30.000 to 40.000 volunteers per year.
Volunteering at major sporting events
25,000 volunteers worked at the
2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
, ''Zharkie. Zimnie. Tvoi'')
, nations = 88
, events = 98 in 7 sports (15 disciplines)
, athletes = 2,873
, opening = 7 February 2014
, closing = 23 February 2014
, opened_by = President Vladimir Putin
, cauldron =
, stadium = Fisht Olympic ...
. They supported the organisers in more than 20 functional areas: meeting guests, assisting navigation, organising the opening and closing ceremonies, organising food outlets, etc. Volunteer applications were open to any nationals of Russia and other countries. The Sochi 2014 Organising Committee received about 200,000 applications, 8 applicants per place. Volunteers received training over the course of more than a year at 26 volunteer centres in 17 cities across Russia. The majority of participants were between 17 and 22 years old. At the same time, 3000 applications were submitted from people over 55 years old. Some of them worked as volunteers during the
1980 Olympics in Moscow. It was the first experience with such a large-scale volunteer program in the contemporary Russia.
The FIFA World Cup in 2018 was supported by 17,040 volunteers of the Russia 2018 Local Organising Committee.
Medical Volunteering
Volunteering in the context of delivering medical care is referred to as
medical volunteering. In general,
medical volunteering has been lauded as a "ethical responsibility to aid the needy. The activities are often offered by both for profit and not for profit associations.
Medical volunteers typically participate in unpaid medical volunteer programs in hospitals, clinics, and underserved areas. Typically, these regions are in underdeveloped nations or nations battling natural disasters, sickness, or violence. These activities typically involves volunteer physicians and nurses.
Dental volunteering
Dental may refer to:
* Dental consonant, in phonetics
* Dental Records, an independent UK record label
* Dentistry, oral medicine
* Teeth
See also
*
* Dental care (disambiguation)
* Dentist (disambiguation)
* Tooth (disambiguation)
{{Disamb ...
is a part of medical volunteering which predominantly focused on dental care.
Volunteer days, weeks and years
Designated days, weeks and years observed by a country or as designated by the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
to encourage volunteering / community service
*
Global Youth Service Day
*
International Volunteer Day
The International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development (5 December), more commonly referred to as International Volunteer Day (IVD), is an international observance mandated by the UN General Assembly in 1985. It offers an opportunity ...
*
International Year of Volunteers
International Year of Volunteers was designated for 2001 by the United Nations General Assembly. The initiative aimed at increased recognition, facilitation, networking and promotion of volunteering, to highlight the achievements of the millions of ...
*
Join Hands Day
*
Mandela Day
*
MLK Day of service
*
Mitzvah Day
Mitzvah Day International is an annual day of faith-based social action that takes place in November each year, primarily in the United Kingdom. On Mitzvah Day each year, community groups and individuals undertake a range of volunteer projects for ...
*
Random Acts of Kindness Day
*
Sewa Day
*
Make A Difference Day
''USA Weekend'' was an American weekend newspaper magazine owned by the Gannett Company. Structured as a sister publication to Gannett's flagship newspaper ''USA Today'' and distributed in the Sunday editions of participating local newspapers, ...
*
World Kindness Day
Political view
Modern societies share a common value of people helping each other; not only do volunteer acts assist others, but they also benefit the volunteering individual on a personal level. Despite having similar objectives, tension can arise between volunteers and state-provided services. In order to curtail this tension, most countries develop policies and enact legislation to clarify the roles and relationships among governmental stakeholders and their voluntary counterparts; this regulation identifies and allocates the necessary legal, social, administrative, and financial support of each party. This is particularly necessary when some voluntary activities are seen as a challenge to the authority of the state (e.g., on 29 January 2001, President Bush cautioned that volunteer groups should supplement—not replace—government agencies' work).
Volunteering that benefits the state but challenges paid counterparts angers labor unions that represent those who are paid for their volunteer work; this is particularly seen in combination departments, such as
volunteer fire department
A volunteer fire department (VFD) is a fire department of volunteers who perform fire suppression and other related emergency services for a local jurisdiction. Volunteer and retained (on-call) firefighters are expected to be on call to respond t ...
s.
Difficulties in cross-national aid
Difficulties in the cross-national aid model of volunteering can arise when it is applied across national borders. The presence of volunteers who are sent from one state to another can be viewed as a breach of
sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
and showing a lack of respect towards the national government of the proposed recipients. Thus, motivations are important when states negotiate offers to send aid and when these proposals are accepted, particularly if donors may postpone assistance or stop it altogether. Three types of conditionality have evolved:
#Financial accountability: Transparency in funding management to ensure that what is done by the volunteers is properly targeted
#Policy reform: Governmental request that developing countries adopt certain social, economic, or environmental policies; often, the most controversial relate to the privatization of services traditionally offered by the state
#Development objectives: Asking developing countries to adjust specific time-bound economic objectives
Some international volunteer organizations define their primary mission as being altruistic: to fight poverty and improve the living standards of people in the developing world, (e.g.
Voluntary Services Overseas
Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) is a not-for-profit international development organization charity with a vision for "a fair world for everyone" and a mission to "create lasting change through volunteering". VSO delivers development impact throug ...
has almost 2,000 skilled professionals working as volunteers to pass on their expertise to local people so that the volunteers' skills remain long after they return home). When these organizations work in partnership with governments, the results can be impressive. However, when other organizations or individual First World governments support the work of volunteer groups, there can be questions as to whether the organizations' or governments' real motives are poverty alleviation. Instead, a focus on creating wealth for some of the poor or developing policies intended to benefit the donor states is sometimes reported. Many low-income countries' economies suffer from industrialization without prosperity and investment without growth. One reason for this is that development assistance guides many Third World governments to pursue development policies that have been wasteful, ill-conceived, or unproductive; some of these policies have been so destructive that the economies could not have been sustained without outside support.
Indeed, some offers of aid have distorted the general spirit of volunteering, treating local voluntary action as contributions in kind, i.e., existing conditions requiring the modification of local people's behavior in order for them to earn the right to donors'
charity. This can be seen as patronizing and offensive to the recipients because the aid expressly serves the policy aims of the donors rather than the needs of the recipients.
Moral resources, political capital and civil society
![Some help files iin a volunteers station in Shenzhen,China](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Some_help_files_iin_a_volunteers_station_in_Shenzhen%2CChina.jpg)
Based on a case study in China, Xu and Ngai (2011) revealed that the developing grassroots volunteerism can be an enclave among various organizations and may be able to work toward the development of civil society in the developing countries. The researchers developed a "Moral Resources and Political Capital" approach to examine the contributions of volunteerism in promoting the civil society. Moral resource means the available morals could be chosen by NGOs. Political capital means the capital that will improve or enhance the NGOs' status, possession or access in the existing political system.
Moreover, Xu and Ngai (2011) distinguished two types of Moral Resources: Moral Resource-I and Moral Resource-II (ibid).
#Moral Resource I: Inspired by
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
's (1998
787 argument of "What ought I to do," Moral Resource-I will encourage the NGOs' confidence and then have the courage to act and conquer difficulties by way of answering and confirming the question of "What ought I to do."
#Moral Resource II: given that Adorno (2000) recognizes that moral or immoral tropes are socially determined, Moral Resource-II refers to the morals that are well accepted by the given society.
Thanks to the intellectual heritage of Blau and Duncan (1967), two types of political capital were identified:
#Political Capital-I refers to the political capital mainly ascribed to the status that the NGO inherited throughout history (e.g., the CYL).
#Political Capital-II refers to the Political Capital that the NGOs earned through their hard efforts.
Obviously, "Moral resource-I itself contains the self-determination that gives participants confidence in the ethical beliefs they have chosen", almost any organizations may have Moral Resource-I, while not all of them have the societal recognized Moral Resource-II. However, the voluntary service organizations predominantly occupy Moral Resource-II because a sense of moral superiority makes it possible that for parties with different values, goals and cultures to work together in promoting the promotion of volunteering. Thus the voluntary service organizations are likely to win the trust and support of the masses as well as the government more easily than will the organizations whose morals are not accepted by mainstream society. In other words, Moral Resource II helps the grassroots organizations with little Political Capital I to win Political Capital-II, which is a crucial factor for their survival and growth in developing countries such as China. Therefore, the voluntary service realm could be an enclave of the development of civil society in the developing nations.
[
]
Potential benefits of volunteering
Academic
Volunteering for community service as part of a college curriculum ( service-learning) provides opportunities for students to surround themselves with new people which helps them learn how to work together as a group, improve teamwork and relational skills, reduce stereotypes, and increases appreciation of other cultures. Students participating in service-learning programs are shown to have more positive attitudes toward self, attitudes toward school and learning, civic engagement, social skills, and academic performance. They are also more likely to complete their degree.
Longevity
Volunteers are observed to have a reduced mortality risk compared to non-volunteers. Therefore, it is worth noting that the various types of work as a volunteer and psychological effects of such altruistic work may produce enough side-effects to contribute to a longer and more fulfilling life. A systematic review shows that adults over age of 65 years who volunteer may experience improved physical and mental health and potentially reduced mortality.
Mental health
A worldwide survey was conducted in a study, suggesting that people who experience the highest levels of happiness are the most successful in terms of close relationships and volunteer work. In comparison, charity in the form of monetary donations, which is another form of altruism
Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...
(volunteering being one of them) is also known to have a similar effect. Another study finds that helping others is associated with higher levels of mental health, above and beyond the benefits of receiving help. On the subject of service-learning, undergraduate students who volunteered 1 to 9 hours per week were less likely to feel depressed than students who did not volunteer. Among people aged 65 years old or above, volunteering may reduce the risk of depression.
Statistics
In the United States, statistics on volunteering have historically been limited, according to volunteerism expert Susan J. Ellis
Susan J. Ellis (March 18, 1948 February 24, 2019) was a trainer, presenter, researcher and consultant regarding volunteerism. She founded the largest publisher of volunteer-related books, Energize, Inc., which has published more than 25 books and ...
. In 2013, the U.S. Current Population Survey included a volunteering supplement which produced statistics on volunteering.
Criticisms
In the 1960s, Ivan Illich
Ivan Dominic Illich ( , ; 4 September 1926 – 2 December 2002) was an Austrian Roman Catholic priest, theologian, philosopher, and social critic. His 1971 book '' Deschooling Society'' criticises modern society's institutional approach to edu ...
offered an analysis of the role of American volunteers in Mexico in his speech entitled "To Hell With Good Intentions". His concerns, along with those of critics such as Paulo Freire and Edward Said, revolve around the notion of altruism
Altruism is the principle and moral practice of concern for the welfare and/or happiness of other human beings or animals, resulting in a quality of life both material and spiritual. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core as ...
as an extension of Christian missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
. In addition, he mentions the sense of responsibility/obligation
An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when the ...
as a factor, which drives the concept of noblesse oblige—first developed by the French aristocracy
Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'.
At t ...
as a moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
duty
A duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; fro, deu, did, past participle of ''devoir''; la, debere, debitum, whence "debt") is a commitment or expectation to perform some action in general or if certain circumstances arise. A duty may ...
derived from their wealth. Simply stated, these apprehensions propose the extension of power and authority over indigenous cultures around the world. Recent critiques of volunteering come from Westmier and Kahn (1996) and bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author and social activist who was Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She is best known for her writings on ...
(née Gloria Watkins) (2004). Also
Georgeou (2012)
has critiqued the impact of neoliberalism
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
on international aid volunteering.
The field of the medical tourism
Medical tourism refers to people traveling abroad to obtain medical treatment. In the past, this usually referred to those who traveled from less-developed countries to major medical centers in highly developed countries for treatment unavailable a ...
(referring to volunteers who travel overseas to deliver medical care) has recently attracted negative criticism when compared to the alternative notion of sustainable capacities, i.e., work done in the context of long-term, locally-run, and foreign-supported infrastructures. A preponderance of this criticism appears largely in scientific and peer-reviewed literature. Recently, media outlets with more general readerships have published such criticisms as well. This type of volunteering is pejoratively referred to as "medical voluntourism".
Another problem noted with volunteering is that it can be used to replace low paid entry positions. This can act to decrease social mobility, with only those capable of affording to work without payment able to gain the experience. Trade unions in the United Kingdom have warned that long term volunteering is a form of exploitation, used by charities to avoid minimum wage legislation. Some sectors now expect candidates for paid roles to have undergone significant periods of volunteer experience whether relevant to the role or not, setting up 'Volunteer Credentialism'.
Volunteers can be exposed to stressful situations and attitudes, which can cause them to suffer from burnout which in turn reduces their activism and overall well-being. There is also evidence that volunteering can become a moral obligation that prompts feelings of guilt when not performed.[Gill MJ. (2021) Understanding the Spread of Sustained Employee Volunteering: How Volunteers Influence Their Coworkers' Moral Identity Work. Journal of Management.]
See also
* Association for Leaders in Volunteer Engagement
The Association for Leaders Volunteer Engagement (AL!VE) was created in 2007. It is a professional association for managers of volunteers. It is a nonprofit organization.
History
Following the demise of the Association for Volunteer Administ ...
(AL!VE)
* Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA)
* Avocation
* Community service
* Crossing guard
* European Solidarity Corps
The European Solidarity Corps (ESC), known until 2016 as European Voluntary Service (EVS), is an international volunteering program by the European Commission for young people to go individually or in teams to another country, usually from one Eu ...
* Federal volunteers service
* International volunteering
International volunteering is when volunteers contribute their time to work for organisations or causes outside their respective home countries. International volunteering has a long association with international development, with the aim of brin ...
* List of volunteer awards
* Micro-volunteering
Micro-volunteering describes a volunteer, or team of volunteers, completing small tasks that make up a larger project. These tasks often benefit a research, charitable, or non-governmental organization. It differs from normal volunteerism as the t ...
* PeaceCorps
The Peace Corps is an independent agency and program of the United States government that trains and deploys volunteers to provide international development assistance. It was established in March 1961 by an executive order of President John F. ...
* Pro bono
( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...
* ''Subbotnik
Subbotnik and voskresnik (from rus, суббо́та, p=sʊˈbotə for "Saturday" and , for "Sunday") were days of volunteer unpaid work on weekends after the October Revolution, though the word itself is derived from (''Subbota'' for Satur ...
''
* Scout leader
A Scout leader or Scouter generally refers to the trained adult leader of a Scout unit. The terms used vary from country to country, over time, and with the type of unit.
Roles
There are many different roles a leader can fulfill depending on t ...
* ''Technisches Hilfswerk
The (THW, English: ''Federal Agency for Technical Relief'') is the federal civil protection organisation of Germany. It is controlled by the German federal government. 99% of its 79,543 members (2019) are volunteers.
Tasks
The tasks of the ...
'' (THW)
* Voluntarism
* Voluntary social year
References
* Geiser, Ch.; Okun, M. A.; Grano, C. (2014)
"Who is motivated to volunteer? A latent profile analysis linking volunteer motivation to frequency of volunteering"
Psychological Test and Assessment Modeling. 56(1). pp. 3–24.
Further reading
* Georgeou, Nichole, '' Neoliberalism, Development, and Aid Volunteering, '' New York: Routledge, 2012.
External links
*
Volunteerism and legislation: a Guidance Note
Inter-Parliamentary Union
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU; french: Union Interparlementaire, UIP) is an inter-parliamentary institution, international organization of national parliaments. Its primary purpose is to promote democratic governance, accountability, and coop ...
, United Nations Volunteers, , 2004
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Work