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Variations in Volunteer Use among Human Service Organizations in the USA

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Abstract

Knowledge of volunteering and volunteer management requires understanding from both individual and organizational perspectives. However, most existing research focuses on individual volunteers and the supply side of volunteering, leaving the demand side substantially understudied. The present study examines the organizational perspective of volunteering, focusing on the differences in volunteer use among nonprofit organizations. In particular, this study tests how various organizational characteristics predict the size of the volunteer program in human service organizations in the USA. The results show that, controlling for revenue and employment size, the size of volunteer program is negatively associated with the proportion of business income, while it is not significantly associated with the proportion of charitable contributions and grants. This finding provides supports for the concerns that increasing commercialization of nonprofit organizations will weaken the role of volunteers in human service delivery. The results also reveal that the extent of volunteer use is positively associated with the culture of good governance within the organization as well as organizational involvement in political activities.

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Notes

  1. The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) system divides nonprofit organizations into 10 broad categories of arts, culture, and humanities; education; environment and animals; health; human services; international, foreign affairs; public, societal benefit; religion related; mutual/membership benefit; and unknown, unclassified (NCCS 2016a).

  2. See Table 5 for the OLS regression results with the organizations that had a volunteer program.

  3. This measure includes both private and government grants because government grants are, like private donations and foundational grants, loosely support a nonprofit’s mission or programs and are not designed to provide direct benefits to the donor (government). The IRS Form 990 also closely aligns government grants with private contributions. Kerlin and Pollak’s article (2011) explains this matter in detail.

  4. The IRS requires organizations with gross receipts greater than or equal to $200,000, or with total assets greater than or equal to $500,000 to file Form 990. Organizations with gross receipts smaller than $200,000 and total assets smaller than $500,000 can file either Form 990 or 990 EZ. Therefore, smaller organizations with gross receipts equal to or smaller than $50,000 that filed Form 990 N (e-postcard) are not included in the sample.

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    Young-joo Lee

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Lee, Yj. Variations in Volunteer Use among Human Service Organizations in the USA. Voluntas 30, 208–221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-018-9969-y

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