Challenges in Volunteer ManagementMatthew Liao-Troth Volunteer management has many challenges, not the least of which is how we study it and view it. Academics examine it from a variety of disciplines and practitioners experience it in a variety of contexts. However both approaches have limitations. In academia we go to public administration schools to learn about public and nonprofit management, to business schools to apply the principles of private enterprise to nonprofit management, to sociology departments to study the phenomena of volunteerism, to psychology departments to understand the motives of volunteers, and economics departments to examine the value or economic worth of volunteerism. The liability of the academic approach is the segmentation of study and research into departmental areas. The study of volunteers and volunteerism needs to cross all of these organizational and discipline boundaries to be fully appreciated and understood as a field of interest. In contrast, practitioners view volunteer management from their own unique experiences. They try to gauge success in volunteer management based on what they have encountered in particular organizations, towns, cultures, and countries in which they work. As important as these insights are, they are difficult to generalize beyond local settings. Just because an individual has been successful in working with volunteers, it does not mean that the lessons learned in one situation can be translated to others under all conditions. The target audience for this volume is anyone who manages volunteers. The goal of the volume is to demonstrate the breadth of thought on volunteer management, both across disciplines and a wide range of settings in which volunteers work. |
Contents
| 3 | |
A Typology of ShortTerm and LongTerm Volunteers | 51 |
Streamlining Volunteer Management Through | 69 |
Introduction | 123 |
Sarah Jane Rehnborg and Thomas McVey | 129 |
Challenges of Volunteer Management in Kazakhstan | 151 |
Design and Implementation Challenges in Employee | 205 |
So What? And Whats Next? | 239 |
References | 247 |
About the Authors | 269 |
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adoption agency Almaty associations Banks benefits Brudney challenges chapter charities Clary community currency community service activities context contribute corporate volunteering culture effective emergent NGO employee volunteer programs environmental Fairshares formal goals ICTs impact important individual International interviews issues JAWOR Journal Kazakhstan KLON-JAWOR LT volunteering management of volunteers managing volunteers Meijs membership management ment Misfits motivation mutual support organizations needs networks nonprofit management nonprofit organizations nonprofit sector number of volunteers organizational outcomes paid staff participants person Poland Poland’s NGO sector Polish NGOs psychological contracts received recruitment relationship respondents retention of volunteers role sample service delivery Sidelines social capital survey tasks teer Texas tion UNDP United Kingdom unteer Voluntary Action Voluntary Sector volunteer activities volunteer administrator Volunteer Center volunteer involvement volunteer management practices volunteerism women’s organizations