Article: Lockstone-Binney, L., Holmes, K., Meijs, L., Oppenheimer, M., Haski-Leventhal, D., & Taplin, R. (2022). Growing the volunteer pool: Identifying non-volunteers most likely to volunteer. Voluntas, 33, 777-794.
This article was recently awarded the 2022 Best Paper in international journal Voluntas presented by the International Society of Third-Sector Research (ISTR) in July 2024. The paper details findings from a national study of non-volunteers led by Professor Kirsten Holmes (Curtin University), which was supported by Volunteering WA and funded by the Australian Research Council (grant no LP:140100528).
The study extends limited research examining non-volunteers and their propensity to engage in volunteering. Little is understood about the reasons why individuals elect not to volunteer, which is set against a backdrop of challenges currently facing societies and volunteer-involving organisations considering noted declines in volunteering participation globally. Using the constructs of Meijs et al's. (2006) theory of volunteerability, the study quantifies this potential volunteer pool (the Potentials) based on variables representing the volunteerability dimensions of willingness and capability, and additional variables reflective of giving behaviours. In doing so, the study confirms that in a general population, a distinct cohort of non-volunteers exist, the Potentials, with these individuals being the most likely non-volunteers amenable to future volunteering.
Based on a large-scale study in Australia with a nationally representative sample, the results revealed that six variables effectively differentiated between volunteers and non-volunteers. In what we believe to be a first, a predictive equation was developed to calculate the likelihood of a person who has not volunteered in the recent past (the last 5 years) taking up volunteering. Our analysis revealed that of the representative sample, approximately 17% of the non-volunteers could be classified as Potentials. Further analysis revealed that the Potentials were more amenable to a range of interventions aimed at promoting volunteering.
In making the award, the jury congratulated the team for writing a compelling paper on a topic that has yet received little attention in civil society research. The commendation noted that the paper made an outstanding contribution, which it was hoped would inspire future researchers to undertake similar comprehensive analyses.
The calculator tool detailed in the paper can be accessed at https://curtinids.github.io/cbs-volunteer-convertability-calculator/calc.html. It can be used by volunteer-involving organisations as a free resource to support their efforts in recruiting new volunteers.
