Temporal Challenges Facing Volunteer Recruitment and Retention: Introducing a Model of Membership Transitions for Volunteers

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session and Reception
  In Interactive Paper Session: Organizational Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Previous approaches to volunteer work focused on resolving issues of recruitment and retention focus on time as an outcome rather than an undercurrent of volunteer labor. Existing literature demonstrates that several dimensions of time surface as issues inextricably linked to volunteer work - scheduling, pace, urgency, scarcity and future focus. To address these issues, this paper presents a model, membership transitions for volunteers (MTV), that builds upon communicative flows of organizational communication (McPhee & Zaug, 2000) and the typology for nonstandard membership (Ballard & Gossett, 2007). Elaborated through a volunteer case study, the model of MTV demonstrates utility in understanding how a volunteer at a nonprofit organization enters as a contingent member who communicatively negotiated a transition into standard membership through the flows of membership negotiation, activity coordination and temporal self-structuring.

Author

• LaRae Dawn Tronstad, U of Texas