Articles

Fifth issue of Voluntary Action
Spring 2000 (Volume 2 Number 2)

 

The Green Gym

Veronica Reynolds,Centre for Healthcare Research and Development, Oxford Brookes University

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This article summarises the findings of the evaluation of the Green Gym, a project pioneered by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV) to encourage sedentary people to become more active by taking part in conservation activities. The research found that taking part in the Green Gym benefited the health and well-being of participants and confirmed that conservation activities can be used to promote fitness. The Green Gym has attracted a new breed of conservation volunteers and the research into this pilot project indicates that volunteering may have the potential to reduce social isolation, to alleviate stress, depression and anxiety, and more generally to lead to improvements in health. It concludes that more research is needed to explore the implications of promoting volunteering in this way.

Volunteerism in hostile times: An examination of feminist social movement organisations in the 1980s

Cheryl Hyde, School of Social Work, University of Maryland

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This article examines the volunteer crisis that existed in feminist social movement organisations (FSMOs) in the USA during the 1980s. It was a period of great risk for feminist organisations because of attacks from the New Right. Consequently, the need for volunteer support was acute. Members of six FSMOs reported that their organisations lacked volunteers. Analysis of these FSMOs reveals several factors that contributed to this volunteer shortage. These included the effects of New Right attacks, the volunteer options available in the organisations, the restrictions placed on these options and broader dynamics that hindered the inclusion of volunteers. Recommendations for nonprofit volunteer recruitment and retention while in a hostile environment are offered.

Delivering the goods: The work and future direction of volunteer management

Pat Gay, Freelance Researcher

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This article reports on a study of volunteer management, a subject that has up to now been largely neglected by researchers. The study begins with an examination of the roles of volunteer managers (VMs) in a variety of settings and goes on to look at the training needs of VMs. It then discusses the advantages and disadvantages of professionalising volunteering, as well as ways of achieving that professionalisation. Finally, the fitness of current methods of volunteer management to meet the needs of volunteers is assessed. The study concludes that volunteer management has the capacity to deliver what is required of it and is ready for some form of professionalisation.

What makes a committed volunteer? Research into the factors affecting the retention of volunteers in Home-Start

Jackie McCudden, Training Consultant, Home-Start UK

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This article summarises a study of the home-visiting volunteers in Home-Start schemes, carried out to help the organisation develop a management strategy for improving the retention of volunteers - schemes cannot function without a contingent of motivated and committed volunteers. The basic premise of the research is that an individual’s motivation influences why they volunteer in the first place, whereas their commitment influences how long they stay a volunteer. The study therefore looks at the factors thought by volunteer organisers and by volunteers themselves to influence volunteer commitment.

Objectifying community development

Gabriel Chanan, Community Development Foundation

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This article argues that community development in the UK should be modernised. National and local government should support it in a much more strategic way than in the past, when support tended to be piecemeal and short-term. Community development should also be given concrete objectives, targets and indicators, which will make the independent activities of local people more visible and their results more measurable. The result will be a community development approach that links the traditional aim of empowerment with the building of civil society and social capital, and which complements, through the autonomous activities of communities, a range of public service and development initiatives. It is suggested that the best way of achieving these results would be to set up a long-term, quasi-independent community development agency.