What does research show about determinants of volunteering?

In the preceding post, What determines who volunteers?, Shona discussed her experience in getting parents to volunteer to help in running a play group. In this post I discuss some Australian research which suggests that volunteers fall into several distinct groups.


A paper by Sara Dolnicar and Melanie Randle, ‘What Moves Which Volunteers to Donate Their Time?’ uses data collected from a national survey of volunteer work conducted by the Australian in 2000 to segment the ‘market’ for volunteer work. The authors use motivations as a basis for statistical techniques that enable them to identify distinct subgroups of volunteers.

Six sub-groups were identified as follows:

• Classic volunteers are involved to do something worthwhile, gain personal satisfaction, and help others. They are older, less frequently active in the workforce, and very active in their volunteering efforts.

• Dedicated volunteers contribute the most hours per year to an average of six volunteering organizations.

• Personally involved volunteers appear to participate in volunteering temporarily, as long as (most probably) their child is part of an organization that relies on parental support.

• Volunteers for personal satisfaction and altruists (two sub-groups) are motivated by gaining their own satisfaction and represent the least distinct segments, with altruists doing the most work in the area of befriending and listening to people.

• Niche volunteers are young, new to volunteering, highly educated and state a variety of rather atypical reasons for volunteering, like feeling obliged to volunteer and having slid into volunteering rather passively, gaining work experience or as a result of religious beliefs.

These research findings are interesting but they don’t shed a great deal of light on the issues that Shona raised. The potential volunteers that Shona was most interested in would be in the ‘personally involved’ sub-group. The question is why some people become more involved than others.

Perhaps the people who are most involved are motivated, consciously or unconsciously, by the feelings they get from volunteering. Recent research findings suggest that it feels good to be good (but I am not sure that we needed researchers to tell us that).

It seems to me that human nature has evolved in such a way that people have a natural desire to contribute voluntarily to activities that are best undertaken collectively. If that makes sense then perhaps it would be more productive to try to explain why a substantial proportion of people are reluctant to volunteer. One idea that has crossed my own mind from time to time as a member of voluntary organizations is that I don’t want to be left ‘holding the baby’. (That expression might not be entirely appropriate in a discussion of volunteering in play groups, but for some reason I can’t resist using it.) It may be worth exploring whether people would be less reluctant to take on onerous voluntary roles if they had some assurance that they could readily pass them on to other members after a defined period.

What determines who volunteers?

This post stems from a discussion I had with Shona a couple of days ago. I had to admit that although I strongly support volunteering I don’t know much about it, or about the characteristics of people who volunteer versus those who free ride on the efforts of others.


Shona agreed to write this guest post about her experience in the hope that it might lead to further discussion of this important issue. Shona writes:

I’ve been involved in a volunteer role at my local playgroup for two and a half years now and over that time I have taken an interest in the types of people that volunteer compared to those that don’t.

The whole point of a community playgroup is that everyone pitches in and helps, thus keeping operating costs to a minimum whilst providing maximum benefit to the kids. There are parents and carers that take on more formal roles, key holders, treasurer, secretary and co-ordinator. But this in theory should simply provide other parents and carers a framework in which to enjoy playgroup. Simple game theory in practice – everyone contributes a small thing for everyone’s greater gain.

Every time someone vacates one of these formal roles, it is my job as co-ordinator, to fill them. I watch people, I see who comes regularly, I look at who pitches in. I also notice those that turn up late, leave early, and make sure they are no-where to be seen when help is required (we’re not talking anything major here, just cutting up fruit for morning tea, putting toys away, etc).

My approach is to narrow down suitable candidates; it is futile asking the group as a whole – no-one ever comes forward, in fact, if we were in a school yard, you would actually see a line of individuals take a huge theatrical step backwards. I approach people individually, quietly, and ask them if they would take on a small role. I think I have about a 30% success rate. The interesting thing is the dynamics of the group that says yes and the dynamics of the group that says no.

The people who I think will say yes can be described as follows. They have a child of an age where they are not clingy or over-dependent on their carer. They attend regularly, either weekly or more than once a week and know many of the other attendees. They have also been attending for more than 6 months and therefore know how the playgroup works. They attend both for their kids benefit, and their own – they have made friends and appreciate the adult interaction. They generally have good communication skills and have contributed more than their share during their visits.

Amazingly, after they say no (on the grounds that they don’t attend regularly), they stop attending as regularly as if to prove they can’t commit to something.

The people who do say yes surprise me every time. They often have two kids, the youngest usually new-born or very young. They are often new members, but do attend regularly, usually more than once a week. They don’t necessarily know how playgroup works but want to learn. I feel guilty accepting their gracious help – but I guess I am one of those people too.

In writing this, I realise it is quite clear cut. Those that have attended for a long period are used to free riding – why contribute? Someone else will step up. Those that are new aren’t aware of the free-riders, they want to contribute and make connections within the community. Finally, I suspect that the longer a person stays in any of the formal roles, the less likely other people are likely to step into those roles. Perhaps we should only have day-leaders (the face of those official roles) on a very short rotation.

My two years are up, it is time to move on, but any tips I can provide my successor (should I be able to find one), would be more than welcome.

What do NSW solar panel owners have in common with mining investors?

‘So you think I am a cranky old fool, do you?’ I knew it was Jim before I turned around to see who was talking. I referred to Jim as a cranky old fool on this blog a couple of weeks ago. At this point I should make sure readers are aware that this Jim is unlike any other Jim I have ever met. He is a royalist. He thinks incentives to put solar panels on roofs of houses are an abomination because the high costs of this method of generating electricity are borne by taxpayers and other users of electricity. And he asks difficult questions. A lot of the people I know avoid Jim when they see him coming. Perhaps that is why he sneaks up on people and just starts talking.


Anyhow, Jim isn’t such a bad old coot. He wasn’t even particularly upset with me for calling him a cranky old fool. After he had my attention, he said: ‘You know that photo of Sydney you have on your blog – the one with the cloud over most of it?’ I replied: ‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about replacing it with a photo I took on a sunny day, now that the dreadful Labor government has been swept out of office’. Jim said: ‘Don’t do that. Find a photo with a darker cloud!’

I was surprised to hear this from Jim. I had never thought of him as a Labor supporter. So, I asked him to explain. As I did so I couldn’t help looking at my watch. I knew I was about to be sucked in to a discussion that might take some time.

Jim asked: ‘What do you think of the decision of the New South Wales government to reduce the feed-in tariff that they will pay people who have installed solar panels?’ I said I didn’t have an opinion. I added that I thought the decision would make him happy because I remembered that he thought solar panels were an abomination.

Jim scowled and just asked another question: ‘What do you think of the proposed mining rent tax?’ I explained that I thought the latest proposal wasn’t quite as bad as the tax first proposed last year. I mentioned something I wrote last year explaining that the main problem was sovereign risk. I argued that when governments enter into agreements with mining companies they should honour those agreements whatever happens, rather than insisting on a higher share of profits because the price of minerals has gone up. I concluded my little speech by suggesting that if this tax is introduced investors will become more wary about signing any kind of agreement with any government in Australia.

Jim said: ‘That is precisely my point about the solar panels. The feed-in tariff specified in those agreements must be one of the worst deals that any government has ever made. But for a new government to just tear up the agreement is one of the lowest acts of bastardry that has ever been perpetrated on investors anywhere in the world’.

I agreed that the decision was dodgy but I said I didn’t think the rating agencies would downgrade the NSW government because of it. It might actually improve the finances of NSW. Jim said: ‘Look, you aren’t going to try to tell me that any investors should take any notice of the rating agencies after the global financial crisis. The real issue is whether anyone can be confident that the people running the NSW government at present are any more trustworthy than Jack Lang. Do you really think these people are more trustworthy than Jack Lang?’

Jim asks difficult questions. Jack Lang was the premier of NSW during the depression in the 1930s. One of the things he is remembered for is his efforts to stop payment of interest to overseas creditors until the financial situation improved in NSW. If he had succeeded this would have done enormous damage to Australia’s reputation as a destination for foreign investment. On the basis of recent performance I think the politicians running NSW at present and those currently running the Commonwealth government might default on interest payments if they had to deal with the kind of economic crisis confronting Australian politicians in the 1930s.

I told Jim that people would like him a lot more if he didn’t ask difficult questions.

Postsript: 7 June 2011

When I saw Jim this morning I asked him what he thought of the decision of the NSW government to honour their contractual obligation to people who had installed solar panels. Jim said he would have been more impressed if the Premier had made the decisions to back down because his conscience was troubling him rather than because he didn't have the numbers in the upper house to pass the legislation.

I suggested that in any case the cloud had lifted over Sydney and that I would find a better photo to put on my blog. Jim said: 'Don't do that! There is a new cloud over Sydney. They have decided to award the Sydney Peace Price to Noam Chomsky'.

I don't know who 'they' are, but if 'they' are interested in promoting peace 'they' should try to avoid provoking people like Jim.

Should we view human flourishing in terms of psychology, capablility or opportunity?

This question may seem like just another intellectual puzzle, but it is actually has important implications for the way we view public policy issues. My bottom line is that the way we answer this question if we are thinking about the flourishing of a close relative or friend might be quite inappropriate if we are thinking about the development of public policy.

I think the best place to begin my explanation is with a brief discussion of the three different perspectives. I don’t wish to imply that these are the only ways of looking at human flourishing – they just seem highly influential.

Martin Seligman is a leading exponent of the psychological perspective. In his recent book, ‘Flourish’, Seligman suggests that well-being theory ‘is essentially a theory of uncoerced choice, and its five elements comprise what free people will choose for their own sake’. The five elements he identifies are: positive emotion (pleasant experiences, happiness and life satisfaction); engagement (the flow state); relationships (positive relations with other people); meaning (belonging to and serving something bigger than yourself); and accomplishment (success, achievement, mastery). In an earlier post I suggested that Seligman has missed another important element that people seek for its own sake, namely control over their own lives. A more fundamental criticism of this approach is that it ignores all elements of well-being other than psychological well-being. For example, it seems reasonable to suppose that free people would usually choose to be healthy rather than ill even if their health made no contribution to their psychological well-being.

The capability approach has been developed by Amartya Sen, an economist. Sen argues that a person’s capability reflects the alternative combination of functionings the person can attain and from which he or she can choose one collection. Functionings include objective criteria as being adequately nourished and being in good health as well as a range of other factors such as achieving self-respect and being socially integrated. In his contribution to ‘Capabilities and Happiness’ (2008, edited by Luigino Bruni et al) Sen notes that individuals may differ a good deal from each other in the weights they attach to different functionings. He seems unwilling, however, to leave the weighting exercise to the individuals concerned. He suggests that ‘the weighting exercise has to be done in terms of explicit valuations, drawing on the prevailing values in a given society’. He also refers to our capability ‘to achieve functionings that we have reason to value’.

The concept of opportunity proposed by Robert Sugden, also an economist, rests on ‘an understanding of persons as responsible rather than rational agents’. According to this view individuals may sometimes act foolishly but nevertheless accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The term ‘opportunity as mutual advantage’ expresses the idea that ‘one person’s opportunities cannot be specified independently of other people’s desires’. The freedom of some other person to seek out and take advantage of opportunities for mutual benefit encompasses his or her freedom to seek out and take advantage of opportunities to benefit you and me. Sugden implies that if everyone has opportunity in this sense, then you and I should see ourselves to be part of an economic system that is full of people who can expect to be rewarded for finding ways to benefit us (‘Opportunity as mutual advantage’, Economics and Philosophy (26)).

If we are considering the well-being of relatives and friends we might consider that opportunity, capability and psychology are all relevant to our assessment. For example, we might be able to think of people who have high levels of psychological well-being even though they have relatively low capability in some respects because we consider that they have not made good use of the opportunities available to them. We might be able to think of others who are unhappy even though they have high levels of capability and have had superior opportunities in life.

However, from a public policy perspective, what business does the government have in trying to improve the capability or psychological well-being of a person if this interferes with his or her status as a responsible agent? We might think that the capability and psychological well-being of such people would be improved if they drank less alcohol or gambled less, for example, but as far as I can see we have no right to prevent them from spending their income as they choose.

The situation becomes rather different if the government is offering some kind of benefit that is intended to improve the capability or well-being of some group. In that situation, it seems to me that the donors (taxpayers) have every right to attach conditions to the proposed benefit and the intended beneficiaries have every right to refuse to accept it if they don’t like the conditions attached.


Some might suggest that the alternatives to accepting a benefit with strong conditions attached could sometimes be so unpalatable that the conditions amount to coercion. I don’t accept that economic incentives ever force people to do anything. Nevertheless, if a person chooses to die rather than accept the conditions attached to a benefit, the question arises of whether this should be viewed as the choice of a responsible agent. Paternalistic intervention may be warranted to protect people who are not of sound mind as well as children.

However, there are also difficult issues involved in considering government proposals to improve the psychological health of children. The recent Australian Government Budget proposes a health and well-being check for 3 year old children on the grounds that ‘around 15.4 per cent of all children and adolescents (those aged up to seventeen years) have a mental disorder’. Internationally renowned experts are apparently telling the government that ‘there is a growing body of evidence showing that you can identify kids with (or at risk of) conduct disorders or poor development very early – from three years old’. The government claims: ‘Intervening early means building strong and resilient children, and avoiding behavioural or mental health issues that can persist for the rest of a person’s life’.

Should I be concerned about this proposal? Perhaps it just offers parents better opportunities to ensure that children get services necessary for their psychological wellbeing. On the other hand, it could be the thin end of a large wedge leading to greater use of pharmaceutical products to control behaviour of children and greater government intervention in family life. I wish I could be more confident that the proposed intervention will actually build strong and resilient children.

Postscript:
On reflection, the paragraph beginning 'Some might suggest that the alternatives to accepting a benefit ... ' doesn't adequately capture the ideas I would like to express. In my view, although welfare systems should be directed to a large extent toward helping people to help themselves, communities should have an over-riding commitment to meeting basic needs of people who have no other means of support.