by Chiponda Chimbelu

12 October 2010

Bonn, Germany: A team of experts and practitioners are currently working on preparing the first-ever global report on volunteerism, the State of the World’s Volunteerism Report (SWVR). The report, which is to be launched in December 2011, is an initiative of the United Nations Volunteer (UNV) programme. It aims to promote a better understanding of volunteerism and recognize the contributions of volunteers to society.

Recently, one of the consultants on SWVR, Dr David Horton Smith, a leading expert on volunteerism led a discussion on “Why people start, change or stop volunteering” in which UNV staff in Bonn, Germany, participated. The goal of the discussion was to examine the different influences that trigger volunteerism and point out the gaps in current research on the subject.

“There are three major factors that affect the decision of a person to volunteer—contextual, personal and situational factors,” Dr Smith stated.

Contextual factors are external factors such as culture, subculture, social structure, population and even the environment. On the other hand, personal factors are a bit more in the person’s control and they include the personality and capacities of the individual as well as the social background and roles of the individual. Finally, situational factors include specific situation stimuli and perceptions relevant to individual action, such as being asked to volunteer. These factors are mutually interrelated, so they should be examined holistically through an interdisciplinary approach.

“Part of the problem in the current research is that sociologists have not had a multidisciplinary approach to include a combination of influences of all types,” he explained.

But this is not the only failing of current research: “Probably less than one per cent of research on volunteerism has focused on the informal part of it,” Dr Smith added.

Academic research has largely focused on the formal version of volunteerism and not the informal or semi-formal: “Look at any publication on volunteerism and you will find little or no mention of the informal volunteerism,” he said.

So, SWVR will recommend that usable knowledge is provided and that more research is carried out to fill the gap between formal and informal volunteerism: “We hope to bridge the gap between academic research on volunteerism and current practice,” Dr Smith explained.

The ongoing research on SWVR will develop recommendations for four target audiences; namely, the research community, practitioners, policy makers and the general public: “This report is not aiming to apply Western parameters by measuring volunteerism and saying things like volunteerism is higher in the US than in another country,” Aygen Aytac SWVR Project Manager said.

“It aims to put the current research, which mainly comes from Northern countries, into a context and tries to highlight the voluntary engagement in Southern countries, which is not very much reflected in most research and thus expand the current understanding of volunteerism,” she added.