The decline of motivation?: From commitment to dropping out of volunteering

Abstract

This article studies volunteerism through the phenomenon of dropping out. By ascertaining the achievements, difficulties, and dilemmas of volunteers at the Center for Assistance to Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, we explored the process of dropping out as an encore to understanding the meaning of volunteerism that ends with abandoning a desired activity. On the basis of a longitudinal study, we argue that dropping out is not always a product of waning motivation-for many volunteers, dropping out was extremely difficult-but rather the outcome of unabridged discrepancies between "ought" and "actual" experiences. Volunteers expect to feel good about themselves. In contrast, the organization expects them to act as free agents who can independently manage feelings of pain and self-doubt. When such discrepancies between expectations and reality occur, feelings of anger and disappointment set in. As a result, devoted volunteers drop out in order to preserve their positive self-feeling. It is our contention that in order to understand the nature of volunteers' dropout and perseverance, close attention should be paid to processes of self-regulation in the context of the specific relations between the volunteers and the organization.

Adapting Nonprofit Resources to New Social Demands: The Food Banks in Spain

“…Nonprofit, collective sentiments, altruistic agents and social purposes generate participatory management systems. The pre-eminence of volunteering means a great part of the human resources will often rotate, requiring specific training, coordination and incentives measures [25]. The management of social products is further complicated in the altruistic entities because they have to face dual markets.…”

Young People Engaging in Volunteering: Questioning a Generational Trend in an Individualized Society

“…This disposition reflects an intergenerational trend toward a more reflexive and individualised form of volunteering characterised by self-interest rather than altruism. As the recent literature suggests, nowadays the willingness to volunteer seems to increasingly depend on personal interests and needs rather than on traditional values such as service to others and a sense of civic duty to the community [16,19,20,29,31]. The young volunteers of this study decided to get involved in this voluntary experience mainly to escape unemployment and precariousness, since some of them were unemployed and others were doing precarious works.…”

“…Corroborating this perspective, several studies report instrumental motivations to join a volunteer experience; that is, volunteers are not necessarily altruistic and are rarely willing to offer their services for no personal gain [27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. For instance, Bocsi and other researchers [33] argue that while the traditional motivations of volunteering are based on altruistic values and on the importance of helping the community, nowadays volunteers are prompted by multiple "modern" motivations.…”

A Preliminary Analysis of Learning Processes for Innovation in Member-Serving Nonprofit Organizations: The Role of Governance Structure and its Elements – Shared Knowledge, Decision Making and Benefit Sharing

“…Daly (2008) suggests that the appointment of a Board of Directors which can give strategic direction to a nonprofit organization and, in particular, aid the organization's resource development, helps to bring long-term success to the organization. In the nonprofit world, leadership tends to be more democratic because the ability of nonprofit organizations to achieve their objectives depends heavily on the knowledge, innovation, experience and skills of their paid employees and volunteers from all organizational levels (Hudson, 1999;Yanay and Yanay, 2008). Thus, nonprofit leaders are inclined to involve organizational members from all levels in innovation.…”