Volunteer Involvement

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theory and practice for volunteer involvement. It represents a milestone for knowledge of how and why volunteers become involved and will be essential reading for practitioners, policy makers and funders. Offering exercises and examples from practice, it introduces concepts for understanding volunteers’ agency and for critically assessing ways in which those who seek to involve volunteers can respond to rapidly changing environments. The authors draw on a combination of theoretical perspectives and practical experiences to develop approaches based on individuals and community strengths and assets, underlining the need for conviviality, respect and enjoyment in volunteer involvement.

• volunteering
• voluntary action
• mutual aid
• charity
• philanthropy
• social action
• civil society
• civic engagement
• participation
• leisure

This book describes real volunteering. It is progressive and moves the conversation on from outdated models of managing volunteers to looking at volunteer involvement in its entirety. It covers the great and the not so great, its honest! It is a must read to look at volunteering in a more sustainable and forward thinking way.” 

Rachael Bayley – Director of Membership Services at Girlguiding

“A fantastic introduction to volunteering and volunteer involvement. Expertly weaves together academic insight with practical guidance, making this a highly accessible, useful, and enjoyable read.”

• Institute for Volunteering Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

  Jurgen Grotz

• Association of Volunteer Managers, London, UK

  Ruth Leonard

Jurgen Grotz PhD, is the Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) at the University of East Anglia. He is Chair of the Association for Research in the Voluntary and Community Sector and trustee of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network. With over two decades of experience in applied research his largely interdisciplinary work has a consistent focus on participative approaches and public involvement, working across the academic, public and voluntary and community sectors. He has co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations (2016), is co-author of Patient and Public Involvement in Health and Social Care Research: An Introduction to Theory and Practice (2020) and most recently co-edited Mobilising Voluntary Action in the UK - Learning from the Pandemic (2022).

Ruth Leonard is Chair of the UK’s Association of Volunteer Managers and Head of Volunteering Development and Operations at Macmillan Cancer Support. She has been involved in volunteer management for nearly two decades and has extensive experience of providing leadership on involving volunteers and collaborating with those who seek to involve volunteers. She is committed to ensuring others are able to develop volunteer involvement skills and has written and spoken about volunteering for diverse publications and events, including chairing conferences on volunteer management and safeguarding. Ruth is regularly called on to provide her practitioner expertise and as a research consultant.

Policies and ethics