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Would You Volunteer?

  • Social Science and Public Policy
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Abstract

Being motivated to volunteer is a crucial condition for both the volunteers and those seeking their services. Yet the reigning conceptual model of volunteering in the field of nonprofit sector studies—an economic one based on the idea that the first may be defined as people engaged in unpaid labor—offers at best a superficial explanation of the motives encouraging them to altruistically offer their time. In light of this conceptual deficiency another definition of volunteering (and hence volunteer) has, of late, been gaining acceptance. Sometimes referred to as a volitional definition, it roots in sociology and social psychology: volunteers feel they are engaging in a leisure activity, which they have had the option to accept or reject on their own terms.

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Further Reading

  • Allahyari, R. A. 2000. Visions of charity: Volunteer workers and moral community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, A study of volunteering in two Sacramento charities serving the homeless.

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  • Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A., & Dover, M. 2006. A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, Volunteer and volunteering are theoretically integrated here with a myriad of other nonprofit sector terms and concepts.

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  • Stebbins, R. A. 1996. Volunteering: A serious leisure perspective. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25, 211–224, Initial conceptualization of volunteering as serious and casual leisure.

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  • Stebbins, R. A. 2000. Antinomies in volunteering: Choice/obligation, leisure/work. Société et Loisir/Society and Leisure, 23, 313–326, A research report on how volunteers define their volunteering.

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  • Stebbins, R. A. 2001. Volunteeringmainstream and marginal: Preserving the leisure experience. In M. Graham, & M. Foley (Eds.),Volunteering in leisure: Marginal or inclusive? (Vol. 75). Eastbourne, UK: Leisure Studies Association, A further discussion of marginal volunteering.

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  • Stebbins, R. A., & Graham, M. M. (Eds.) 2004. Volunteering as leisure/leisure as volunteering: An international assessment. Wallington, UK: CAB International. A look at volunteering as leisure in six countries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4

    Robert A. Stebbins

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  1. Robert A. Stebbins
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Correspondence to Robert A. Stebbins.

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Stebbins, R.A. Would You Volunteer?. Soc 46, 155–159 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-008-9186-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-008-9186-1

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