Volunteering
Volunteering, also known as voluntarism, involves individuals freely offering their time and skills to assist others without monetary compensation. This practice encompasses a wide range of activities, from community service and environmental initiatives to advocacy and support for vulnerable populations. Volunteering not only fulfills societal needs but also has personal benefits, such as enhancing self-esteem and combating social isolation. Historically, voluntarism has deep roots, with notable examples like Benjamin Franklin's 1736 volunteer firefighting organization and Clara Barton's establishment of the American Red Cross in 1881.
In contemporary society, the volunteering rate in the United States has remained stable, with approximately 25.3% of the population participating in volunteer work as of 2014. Trends indicate that women are generally more likely to volunteer than men, and educational attainment positively correlates with volunteer rates. Interestingly, volunteering behavior often starts in adolescence and can be influenced by parental involvement. Various demographic factors, such as socioeconomic status, also play a role in volunteering patterns. Overall, volunteering acts as a vital conduit for community engagement and personal growth, benefiting both volunteers and those they serve.
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Subject Terms
Volunteering
Volunteering, or voluntarism, is act of freely offering one’s time to perform a service without financial payment. There are many different types of volunteer activities ranging from formal to informal. Examples of volunteer work include advocacy, community welfare, religious activities, environmental awareness and remediation, animal welfare, special needs assistance, youth and elder work, adult education, political causes, and fundraising.
Voluntarism can increase self-esteem, because helping others makes one feel good about oneself, and may help participants overcome social isolation. While voluntarism may be associated with a single event, such as a community river clean-up, it is typically proactive (rather than reactive) and involves an ongoing commitment. Rates of voluntarism in the United States are stable to rising, with voluntarism flourishing among those seeking to join a group, gain approval, and boost self-esteem.
Overview
Throughout history people have always helped one another out of a sense of altruism or social connection. In the United States, as in most other countries, people help friends and neighbors in times of need, war, and personal and political strife. Benjamin Franklin formed the first volunteer organization in the country when he created the first volunteer firefighting company in 1736. Nearly a century and a half later, Clara Barton established the American Red Cross in 1881, a volunteer organization that assisted war casualties that has grown into a humanitarian organization devoted to disaster relief and emergency assistance.
Whether through wars and crises or through purely altruistic moments such as the Great Awakening in the 1800s, during which students worked in communities under the leadership of various religious groups, many people over the centuries have pledged their time to help others in need.
While the bulk of the literature surrounding voluntarism is based on adult populations, a growing literature is focusing on voluntarism among youths and young adults. The benefit of helping seems to be greatest for those suffering from low self-esteem. As sociologist James S. Coleman wrote in his 1961 book The Adolescent Society, “What is it that so many of our youths want? Not possessions. . . . What they really want is to be needed, to derive status from what they have to offer.”
Teenagers are more likely to volunteer if their parents volunteer. Furthermore, those who volunteer through school programs during late adolescence are more likely to continue with their prosocial behavior throughout their lives. While the reason for this continued behavior is not clear, it may be that motivations associated with prosocial behavior often evolve. While an individual may volunteer due to egoism (self-esteem enhancement), motivation may later turn to collectivism (community concern) or principalism (enhanced understanding or personal development).
The extent to which gender affects voluntarism is not completely clear, although studies indicate that women are generally more likely than men to volunteer. Similar disagreement surrounds the effect of socioeconomic status on voluntarism, with some researchers finding no class differences among participation rates, and others finding that participation is higher among high socioeconomic status (SES) adults. Additionally, teenagers with parents of higher SES are more likely to volunteer. This is consistent with the literature indicating that education increases voluntarism. Note, however, that education’s importance varies with the type of voluntary association; education is positively related to political voluntarism but unrelated to informal community association.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall volunteering rate in the United States in 2014 was 25.3 percent, with about 62.8 million people volunteering for an organization at least once from September 2013 to September 2014. Recorded volunteer rates were 22 percent among men and 28.3 percent among women. People aged thirty-three to forty-four were the most likely to volunteer (29.8 percent), while people aged twenty to twenty-four were the least likely (18.7 percent). Among people aged twenty-five and older, college graduates volunteered at a rate of 39.4 percent, while people with a high school education volunteered at a rate of 16.4 percent. The median amount of time spent volunteering over the course of the year was fifty hours. The types of organizations most frequently volunteered for were religious (33.3 percent), educational or youth service (25.1 percent), and social or community service organizations (14.4 percent).
Regardless of the outlet (formal or informal), voluntarism builds self-confidence and elevates self-esteem. While women and those of higher education and socioeconomic status are more likely to volunteer, all are eligible to reap the benefits of voluntarism.
Bibliography
Carlson, Dennis. Volunteers of America. Boston: SensePublishers. 2012. eBook.
Coleman, James S. The Adolescent Society. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. 1961. Print.
Fiske, Susan T. Social Beings: A Core Motives Approach to Social Psychology. Hoboken: Wiley, 2004. Print.
Graff, Linda L. “Volunteering for the Health of It: Report of the Findings from a Health Promotion Grant Funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health.” Linda Graff and Associates. Volunteer Ontario, 2005. PDF file.
Oesterle, Sabrina, Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson, and Jeylan T. Mortimer. “Volunteerism during the Transition to Adulthood: A Life Course Perspective.” Social Forces 82 (2004): 1123–49. Print.
Points of Light Foundation. “Volunteer Centers: A History of America.” HandsOn Network, 2005. PDF file.
Studer, Sibylle, and Georg von Schnurbein. “Organizational Factors Affecting Volunteers: A Literature Review on Volunteer Coordination.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations 24.2 (2013): 403–40. Print.
Stürmer, Stefan, and Mark Snyder, eds. The Psychology of Prosocial Behavior: Group Processes, Intergroup Relations, and Helping. Malden: Wiley, 2010. Print.
Vecina, María L., Fernando Chacón, Manuel Sueiro, and Ana Barrón. “Volunteer Engagement: Does Engagement Predict the Degree of Satisfaction among New Volunteers and the Commitment of Those Who Have Been Active Longer?” Applied Psychology: An International Review 61.1 (2012): 130–48. Print.
"Volunteering in the United States, 2014." Bureau of Labor Statistics. US Dept. of Commerce, 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 29 July 2015.