On defining and measuring volunteering in the United States and abroad - ED Carson
"There is much to be learned through a better understanding of the roles and involvement of volunteers. In a recent Forbes article, Peter Drucker suggests that as businesses seek new ways to motivate and retain a highly educated work force in a labor market where such employees are in great demand, there is a great deal that they could learn from organizations that rely on volunteers (9).
What motivates—especially knowledge workers—is what motivates volunteers.
Volunteers, we know, have to get more satisfaction from their work than paid employees precisely because they do not get a paycheck. They need, above all, challenge. They need to know the organization’s mission and to believe in it. They need continuous training. They need to see results (10).
Drucker’s observation underscores the growing importance of understanding and valuing volunteers. The challenge to nonprofit scho lars is to develop better explanatory theories on volunteering and to collect more accurate data so that the most basic questions can be answered."
