Outside organizations: Exploring the meanings of informal volunteering in times of crisis

• In Event: Community Prevention and Response to Crises

Abstract

Traditionally, studies of volunteering have focused on organized volunteering, whereas informal volunteering, carried outside organizations, has so far been 'invisible' (Dean, 2022). Some authors do not include informal volunteering in their definition of volunteering at all (Rochester et al, 2010; Musick & Wilson, 2008) or see it as a very different type of activity (Gavelin, Svedberg & Pestoff, 2011: 82). However, the recent crises experienced in Europe and globally have not only challenged the boundary between formal and informal volunteering, but more importantly, have shown the importance of informal volunteering for society's ability to manage crises (Rees et al. 2023). Although informal volunteering in times of crises has received scholarly attention (Harris at al. 2017; Simsa at al. 2019; Yang 2021), it is still a civic activity that is not sufficiently understood.

This paper is based on a qualitative analysis of 32 in-depth interviews with 16 volunteers who helped in the Czech Republic during the Covid pandemic (2020-21) or at the beginning of the war in Ukraine during the refugee crisis (2022-23). Two interviews were conducted with each volunteer, a first narrative and a subsequent semi-structured interview. Data were analysed using the open coding and category formation method based on the constant comparative technique as known from grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014). The aim was to explore (1) how direct volunteers define themselves in relation to organizations, (2) how they describe what enabled them to help strangers informally, i.e. something that the existing literature considers impossible or exceptional, and (3) how the relation between private and public sphere/spaces is conceptualized in the narratives of direct volunteers.

Our findings show that volunteers make a choice to help directly, often explicitly defining informal volunteering vis-à-vis organized aid as their preferred style of helping, or as a solution to the failure of formal aid, concerning both the credibility and effectiveness of helping. It appears that in times of crisis, volunteers are able to informally substitute for the mediating and coordinating structures of organizations, for example by personally assessing the need for assistance in terms of morality and ethics, being able to informally coordinate in groups, etc., which requires specific skills and experience. Finally, we found that direct volunteers can turn their private spaces into "public" places, for example by setting up a workshop in their living room to sew drapes during covid, or by vacating a room in their apartment to house refugees.

Informal volunteering in times of crisis is more than just neighborly help. It is shown to be long-term or planned and even to target strangers as beneficiaries, which some authors have considered impossible in informal helping (Penner, 2002; von Essen). Informal volunteering in times of crisis is also much more visible in the public space. Therefore, Wilson's objection that informal volunteering does not belong clearly in the public sphere and thus not in civil society (Wilson, 2000) seems not to apply in times of crisis.

References

References
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Author

• Tereza Pospíšilová, Charles University, Faculty of Humanities