Too Many Fish in the Sea? New Sources of Volunteer Energy to Sustain Host Organizations

• In Event: Voluntarism as a Digital and Renewable Resource

Abstract

Brudney and Meijs (2009) propose a “regenerative model” of volunteer energy as the fundamental building block or “raw material” that volunteer-involving organizations transform into volunteering. Next, Brudney and Meijs (2013) show that three types of volunteer energy exist. Available first to organizations is volunteer energy conceived as ‘oil’ that can be translated into traditional volunteering, i.e., ongoing volunteering. From this perspective volunteer energy can be likened to an abundant, though perhaps ultimately limited, resource. Second, volunteer energy resembles ‘solar power’ in the sense of spontaneous volunteering, as when volunteers suddenly appear on site (or virtually) seeking work to be done on demand; this type of volunteer energy must be used immediately or is lost. Finally, as we elaborate below, volunteer energy can be compared to different species of fish that can be translated into episodic volunteering in widely different forms.
In this research we argue that volunteer-involving organizations have turned to identifying and cultivating new ‘species of fish.’ That is, host organizations have introduced novel arrangements to support the episodic volunteering apparently preferred by citizens. We elaborate the sources of volunteer energy that lead to episodic volunteering, demonstrate the creativity of organizations in seeking these various ‘fish,’ and point out the long-term implications of this trend for citizens as well as host organizations.
We define episodic volunteering as any volunteer engagement that constitutes a short-term commitment or task-specific volunteering project, whereby the volunteer disappears after fulfilment. This volunteering can be seen as an ‘episode’ in the ongoing ‘story’ or life biography of the volunteer and/or the host organization.
In the paper we analyze the different agencies for episodic volunteering from two interrelated perspectives. The first perspective is that some of these new sources can be described by the ‘hyphen’ that connects them to other parts of the agenda of the volunteer. Family-volunteering, volun-tourism. corporate-volunteering, etc. are mechanisms that bridge multiple aspects of participants’ lives. By connecting the source of volunteer energy to another obligation in the busy schedule, the pressure on volunteer availability lessens. Yet, at the same time the volunteering becomes episodic as it most likely will end when the other obligation in the agenda changes. The second perspective is the so-called “third-party model,” proposed by Haski-Leventhal, Meijs, and Hustinx (2010). In some examples of ‘hyphen’ volunteering the other obligation in the agenda is controlled by an organization that does not use volunteers itself, such as in corporate (company) volunteering or school-based community service. Next to potentially influencing the willingness and availability to volunteer, the intervention of the extra organization mostly influences the volunteer recruitment process.
In this research we examine how the focus on episodic volunteering for host organizations affects the mechanisms for recruitment of volunteers, the integration of volunteers into work roles, the different demands placed on the administrators of volunteer resources, and the consequences for sustaining volunteer involvement and productive organizational activity. In addition, we explore the long-term consequences for volunteering and volunteer energy of organizations contenting themselves with episodic, rather than ongoing, citizen involvement.

Authors

• Lucas Meijs, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Jeffrey Brudney, University of North Carolina Wilmington

• Stephanie Maas, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam