Volunteer coordinators` role: Volunteer Management : A case study investigating the volunteer coordinator`s role: How do volunteer-coordinators motivate volunteers to stay committed for long-term engagements?

Abstract

Today the world is full of volunteers in different sectors. They are doing great relief work by giving back to the society. Their contribution means a lot to the economy of every community, country and to the world. Many people benefit from volunteer contribution. Unfortunately, not all their contribution come to recognition in certain areas and organizations. Some they do not know how valuable volunteers are. This has caused many organizations to lose volunteers and the reason some struggle to have enough volunteers to cover their goals as an organization. Volunteers need to be motivated, feel appreciated and given the recognition, they deserve. Based on this there is clearly need to obtain more knowledge and deep understanding to how coordinator can manage to return volunteers for long-term engagements. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the role of volunteer coordinators play in motivating volunteers working in nursing homes in Norway. How they keep volunteers motivated and return for long-term engagements. Based on this I chose to formulate my research question as follows:

How do volunteer coordinators motivate volunteers to stay committed for long-term engagements?

The theory in this study examines the volunteer`s motivation, engagement and commitment to the activities to be performed. This is a case study and I have used interviews to collect data. My informants were volunteer coordinators with many years of volunteerism behind them. I interviewed four different coordinators from three different organizations and a total amount of four hours long interviews collected.

The findings of this study describe how coordinators motivate volunteers without using any type of rewards or salary: « The right to choose» «Mastery of tasks» «feedback and recognition»: «building network» «positive experience»