Unpacking the Volunteer Experience: The Influence of Volunteer Management on Retention and Promotion of the Organisation
22/11/2024
Published in: Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, Vol 9, No 3, 2023.
Authors: Jaclyn S. Piatak – University of North Carolina at Charlotte; and Joanne G. Carman –University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Volunteers are not only a vital resource; they are can also be key advocates for the organisation.
This research considers factors affecting volunteer retention, and likelihood of recommending the organisation to others. It briefly touches on motivations for volunteering and recruitment methods, but primarily focuses on the quality of the volunteer experience and predictors of volunteer satisfaction.
Specifically, it asks how training, inclusion, activities, interactions and over all experience with the organisation correspond to volunteer satisfaction, measured as likelihood of promoting the organisation and intention to continue volunteering.
The research included a survey, and provides plenty of quantitative analysis and statistics, together with some commentary from individual interviews with volunteers.
It finds that an efficient onboarding and placement which addresses the volunteer motives and matches their skills and interests to volunteer roles, though good volunteer management practice, is not enough to ensure retention. This is because the reason for joining may not be the same as the reason for staying.
The research found that factors contributing to a positive volunteer experience included:
- giving volunteers a degree of autonomy and ownership in providing their services,
- flexibility in responsibilities and clear and customised roles.
- positive interactions with paid staff and other volunteers.
- appropriate leadership.
- the ability to participate eg in volunteer events, in decisions about their volunteering
- both task and emotion-oriented support.
Critical to volunteer satisfaction is an inclusive organisational climate; fostering a culture where volunteers feel welcome and respected, where volunteers have a voice and a volunteer identity, and where volunteers feel they belong.
The findings highlight the importance of providing training for volunteers; being left to learn on the job is false economy. Volunteer organisations need to invest in their volunteers. Volunteer satisfaction is enhanced by both formal and informal training, induction on arrival and ongoing skills development. In addition, the report suggests that many organisations do not pay enough attention to training staff on working with volunteers.
The report concludes that, in the context of this research, from the volunteer perspective, training and an inclusive environment matter more than logistics (administration and coordination), and are critical to delivering a positive experience and enhancing satisfaction, and this improves retention and recommendations to others.