Birkbeck College

Motivation to Volunteer

This study seeks to understand what motivates people to make a regular commitment to volunteer work within the organisational context, where the "obvious motivators...are usually irrelevant" (Grube and Piliaven, 2000). I am broadly interested in whether the decision to volunteer comes before seeking out a suitable opportunity or only arises when an opportunity offers itself? In other words, are people motivated to do a good act primarily (and then seek out the options) or are they motivated by seeing (and following up on) an opportunity to do a good act? On a theoretical level, this research will lay the groundwork for building future theory, but it is also of interest on a practical level, as it will assist this organisation and others in attracting and keeping future volunteers.
The study consists of an overview of the existing literature; then an outline of the research propositions and the method by which these are to be answered; followed by an overview of how the data were collected and of the key results are given. Conclusions will then be made following a discussion of the findings.