The role of volunteer centers: Creating a healthy volunteer resources ecosystem

• In Event: Analyzing different layers of volunteer infrastructure in crisis and beyond

Abstract

Volunteering, or volunteer energy, can be understood as “a human-made, renewable resource that can be grown and recycled, and whose continuation and volume of flow can be influenced by human beings positively as well as negatively” (Brudney & Meijs, 2009, p. 546). Recently, Koolen-Maas et al. (2023) realized that the resource base that creates the flow of volunteer energy has been diversified and propose to differentiate between three volunteer resource species: traditional (wild salmon), third party (farmed fish) and spontaneous (marine plankton). These three volunteer resources are characterized by populations of volunteer resources engaged in complex interactions among themselves and with a broad array of stakeholders (Bussell & Forbes, 2003). The field of volunteering can thus be seen as a vibrant ecosystem, wherein the three resources and a broad array of actors and institutional factors interact, and collectively need to provide the right conditions for sustaining, growing, and replenishing each volunteer resource in a healthy ecosystem. Volunteer centres can be the governance actor in this.
The ecosystem analogy has been widely applied to other fields (Peltonieme & Vuori, 2004). The volunteer ecosystem includes 1) individuals who may possess one or more volunteer resources, 2) direct users of the resources, 3) other volunteer-involving organizations and stakeholders, including volunteer centers, companies, governments, educational institutes. All of these elements influence the level of volunteer resources. In addition, the volunteer ecosystem is embedded within a broader environment of institutional arrangements such as nonprofit regimes (Salamon & Sokolowski, 2001), discourses on the role or value of volunteering (Hilger, 2005), community characteristics (Nesbit et al., 2018), and cultural antecedents (Damian, 2018). Within this volunteering ecosystem, a volunteer center could provide the community perspective to safeguard sustainability of the volunteer resources. Following Brudney and Meijs (2013), the volunteering infrastructure or volunteer centers (Bos, 2014) could play an important role in creating the governance at community level for maintaining the ecosystem.
This study aims to explore the role of volunteer centres in the volunteer ecosystem. Data will be gathered using a mixed methods approach based on interviews with core stakeholders in the (Dutch) volunteering infrastructure, focus groups with representatives of volunteer centres and a survey amongst volunteer centres who are member of the Nederlandse Organisaties Vrijwilligerswerk (NOV, the Dutch Organization on volunteering). Data will be analyzed using a thematic analysis (Terry et all, 2017). The focus will be on the relation and coordination between the volunteer centers, their funders (mostly municipalities) and the new actors such as companies and educational institutes.
Applying the perspectives of the volunteer ecosystem and the volunteer(ing) infrastructure, opens ideas on other data needed (e.g who are the non-volunteers, Lockstone et al., 2022), potential new policies (how to create a healthy ecosystem, Koolen-Maas et al., 2023), broadening the set of stakeholders (see e.g. Haske-Leventhal, 2010), new governance instruments and the pivotal role for volunteer centers (Bos, 2014).


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Authors

• Lucas Meijs, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Philine van Overbeeke, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Stephanie A. Koolen-Maas