The research findings were all proposed in this chapter. They were organized as the research structure starting from individual level, team level, and organizational level. The factors influencing volunteer retention remained in the individual level are job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and personal career or life planning. The factors influencing volunteer retention remained in the team level are leadership and partnership. The factors influencing volunteer retention remained in the organizational level were organizational commitment and organizational goal. Each factor would be explained how they influence volunteer retention respectively.
Individual Level
Individual level here referred to volunteers themselves. There are three factors remained in this level and they were job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and personal career or life planning. Each factor would be discussed with the feedback from interviewees as below.
Job Satisfaction
There were three items under job satisfaction stated by interviewees and mostly from volunteers. They were shown with the feedback from interviewees below.
The difficulties or challenges occur while working.
Every social institute and group owns its specific function toward different target.
Therefore, volunteers would be asked to learn or equipped different skills. The required skills are mostly related to the content when offering service to people in need. Sometimes, volunteers would feel that they were under pressure or be challenged to learn the required skills. The difficulties or challenges occurred during the process would influence volunteer retention. Took some of the participants in this
research for example. They help blind people live a healthy and happy life by teaching and leading them to ride tandem bike.
“Volunteers often feel tired and challenged leading blind people riding tandem bike while caring about their safety. Therefore, we don’t have much people joining our team regularly.” (V1_JS.1)
“Once volunteers are frustrated because of the difficulties or challenges they meet during the activity. They are likely to leave organization.” (V1_JS.5)
On the other hand, volunteers from other organization revealed the concern of frustration caused by job content would influence their intention to leave organization as well.
The expectation of job content.
Volunteers have expectation to job content before joining organization and during the process of doing voluntary job. The expectation remained in volunteers’
mind might be an intangible power which appeal them joining. However, once the job content or organization fall short of volunteers’ expectation, they are likely to lower their participation or even leave the organization. Almost half of the interviews stated they had the concern of expectation.
One of the interviewees who has great experience in leading volunteers and served as a volunteer devoting himself many years to social welfare institutes and groups stating his observation like below:
“Some volunteers don’t think carefully before joining the organization. It’s like an ideas pops out suddenly on his or her mind. Their intentions of participating in doing voluntary job are mostly influenced by their friends. Therefore, they
think it will be more interesting to do voluntary job together with their friends.
People who joining organization without careful think are likely to leave because they are easily fail reaching their expectation.”(V1_JS.3)
Some volunteers might meet the gap between his or her expectation of job and the practical while offering service.
“At the beginning, I was fully confident to help my case family improve their living quality. They did change and improve as what I planned. However, I was regarded as a baby sitter and started to do many things which were not my duty.
My work loading were getting heavy and also fell short of expectation of this voluntary job. Then I decided to quit.”(V3_JS.3)
Other interviewees who are volunteer managers or administrators observed this situation as well.
“Most volunteers leave after he or she finds out job content are different from what he or she expect.”(VM_JS.3)
The joy while doing voluntary job.
There were volunteers caring about whether they can have joy while offering their service or not. Some interviewees indicated that working with joy could help them stay longer time with organization.
“Having joy while doing voluntary job is really important to me. If I am interested in what I do, I’ll keep doing it. Working with joy is both good for volunteers and target people or group. ” (V4_JS.5)
“I can learn many things when being a volunteer. I learned how to get along with people come from different background and equipped myself with various skills which I may not learn from school. I can also make friends with same values. I got a lot joy when being a volunteer and this is also the main reason keeps me doing it.” (V6_JS.5)
Some volunteer managers also concern this issue when leading volunteers.
“Some volunteers feel bored because of the same service content. They don’t want to do the same thing all the time. Therefore, some people will leave.
Afterwards, I started to think about how to enrich volunteers’ job content and prevent them from leaving with the same reason.” (VM1_JS.5)
“There was once a volunteer whose job was be accompany with children chatting and painting with them. He then left organization because of he had no joy while working and got bored with his job.”(VM2_JS.5)
Organizational Commitment
There were three items be discussed within organizational commitment. They were the values shared between volunteers and organization, the emotional linkage between volunteers and organization, and the identification and respect. They were shown with the feedback from interviewees below.
The values shared between volunteers and organization.
One of the factors appealing volunteers joining in is because of the same value shared by each other. Generally, volunteer would figure out the purpose and mission of the organization he or she is considering joining in. Volunteers would have a basic
picture to see whether organization share same values with himself or herself or not.
The shared values are like a connection linking volunteers and organization and they are likely to advance to the same goal.
“I will definitely figure out the purpose, mission, and even vision of the organization which I join. This step is very important to the organization and me. We need to know how far we can go for each other.” (V4_OC.1)
However, not every volunteer does the same thing before joining in any organization. That’s one of the reasons which cause high volunteer turn over rate.
People who became senior volunteers usually share the same value with organization.
They are unlikely to leave organization unless there’s something force them to leave.
In this phase, volunteers are strongly committed with organization. One of the interviewees who is a volunteer manager stated what she observed.
“Some senior volunteers in the organization told me that they wouldn’t leave organization because of the resignation of their volunteer manager, because they completely identified with organization’s values and purposes.”(VM_OC.1)
The emotional linkage between volunteers and organization.
After volunteers joining in organizations with the concern of sharing the same values. They started to build up further relationship with other volunteers. They had emotional connection with other member and the organization. A volunteer stated like this.
“I do put great emphasis on the emotional linkage between organization and me.
I care about the relationship built up with other members. That’s one of my main reasons keep me stay with organization. ” (V5_OC.3)
The identification and respect.
“Volunteers concern much about if organization care about them or not. They need to identified and respected in every angle. The extent that they feel themselves being identified and respected will influence how they committed to organization.”
(VM1_OC.4)
This statement explained that volunteers needed to be identified with their contribution to organization. They didn’t want to be regarded only as a human resource supplied unit but an important partner in the organization. Yet some organizations failed to show identification and respect to volunteers. Thus, it caused more and more volunteer leaving. One of the interviewees who’s an experienced volunteer manager and used to serve in seven nonprofit organizations pointed out the solution.
“To identify and respect volunteers doesn’t mean that you need to carry out what they want to do, instead, volunteer leaders or managers should let volunteers know that their voice have been kept in your mind. ” (VM4_OC.4)
What this volunteer manager wanted to explain was the way of communication.
The sincere atmosphere created between volunteers and their leaders. Showing care toward volunteers by listening to what they want to express is an essential step to make them committed strongly to the organization. Moreover, the praises given to volunteer to appreciate their contribution can also help enhance the identification
toward volunteers. Most volunteers cared much about whether receiving compliments or not, because they regarded it as a way that organization put great emphasis on their contribution. Meanwhile, they were motivated to perform better next time.
Life and Career Planning
Life and career planning could be a reason influencing volunteers’ intention to leave. The further explanation was stated below with the feedback of interviewees.
The item of life planning covered several issues here based on the feedback from interviewees. Volunteers have other life issue which may influence their intention to leave the organization. They will make choices between different organizations because of the various social issues they care about. For this situation, most volunteer managers who participated in this research indicated they remain an open-minded attitude to volunteers’ leaving. They even encourage volunteers caring other social issue by joining different organizations and bringing back what they learned to better the development of current organization. Nevertheless, there were volunteers who left without giving further explanation but said that they have different life planning to move forward.
On the other hand, volunteers mostly come from three backgrounds, including students, people who are still working, and people who have retired. For people who’s still working and doing voluntary job at meantime may lower their time of participation or leave organization by having the concern about their career planning.
One of their priorities of lives is make a living to support their life expenses. For instance, some interviewees indicated the same idea like the statement below.
“I am still working and that’s the first priority when arranging my time between job and voluntary participation. I cannot fully devote myself into doing
voluntary job. Sometimes, I need to reduce my time of doing voluntary job in order to prevent conflicts of time management.” (V4_PC.1)
One of the interviewees who are volunteer manager also stated her opinion for this situation.
“Part of the volunteers working in our organization hasn’t retied yet. They won’t be able to offer their service in daily time. They are likely to leave organization as well. ” (VM2_PC.1)
Team Level
Team level here referred to the interaction between two situations. One is for volunteers and volunteers. The other one is for volunteers and leaders. There are two factors remained in this level and they are leadership and partnership. Therefore, the factors influencing volunteer retention from the perspective of team were stated in this level.
Leadership.
The leadership be discussed here cover the duty carried out by volunteer leader, volunteer manager, and volunteer administrator. There were four items be discussed within leadership. They were the motivation and identification of volunteers, the communication and coordination, the establishment of impartial and fair rules and discipline, and the resignation of volunteer manager or administrator. They were shown with the feedback from interviewees below.
The communication and coordination.
Volunteers come from different backgrounds and equip various professionals and knowledge. They have different point of views of doing voluntary job though they
shared the same value of helping people in need. Their various professionals and knowledge sometimes likely caused conflicts. Conflicts will cause prejudices tearing apart the team and causing more and more volunteer leaving. Leading a team like this is a challenge to any volunteer managers and administrators. Volunteer managers and administrators must know how to strike a balance between these volunteers and management. Therefore, the ability of communication and coordination is quite important when leading volunteers. One of the volunteer managers shared his experience as blow.
“Volunteer managers must know how to tackle with the volunteers who tend to dominate the team. Communication and coordination are both important but challenging for volunteer manager. Standing in a neutral position, you must use a tender way to communicate with everyone and try to coordinate different voices.
Make volunteers get rid of their prejudices and work as a team. ” (V2_L.3)
Some volunteer managers and administrators indicated that they are still learning how to lead a team like this, while some senior managers argued that the characteristic of volunteer changed generation by generation. Everyone needs to be more tolerant to different voices.
The establishment of impartial and fair rules and discipline.
Both volunteers and volunteer managers proposed to establish impartial and fair rule and discipline in a team. Everyone in the team must obey the rules to show the fairness.
“Leaders must establish rules and principles for the team and apply them completely if this team is expected to advance to a greater future. ” (V2_L.4) One of the experienced volunteer manager described how he set rules and apply them in the team.
“At the beginning, I clearly set up rules and explain the meaning telling every member why we have to obey these rules. Afterwards, I will try to internalize every rule and make volunteers accustomed to the rules. Finally, the internalization of rules becomes an intangible power to maintain the discipline of the team. Leader doesn’t have to explain or even persuade everyone about the rules.” (VM4_L.4) There was another concern about the establishment of rules and discipline. Some volunteers stated that setting impartial and fair rules not only help build up good discipline and team image, but also attract other people joining in.
However, some interviewees also made suggestion in different point of views.
“Volunteer managers should be careful when setting these rules because they might reduce the flexibility of a team. ”(VM6_L.5)
“Flexibility should be remained while setting all the rules. Otherwise, the whole team will be restricted to perform better. ”(V3_L.5)
The resignation of volunteer manager or administrator.
Volunteer likely to leave organization alone with the resignation of volunteer manager or administrator because of the emotional connection. They already developed stable relationship with each other which support volunteers to stay in organization.
“Many social institutes and groups meet the situation like volunteers will leave organization together with their leader.” (VM2_L.7)
“Every time when there’s a new volunteer manager or administrator take over the former leader’s duty, we will lose some volunteers. Those volunteers left with the former volunteer leader or manager.” (VM3_L.7)
“The resignation of volunteer manager or administrator likely to influence volunteers’ intention to leave organization.” (V3_L.7)
Partnership
There were four items be discussed within partnership. They were the purpose of developing partnership, building partnership in formal and informal way, the inconsistent working time of each volunteer, and the influence of informal groups.
They were shown with the feedback from interviewees below.
The purpose of developing partnership.
Most interviewees emphasized the significance of developing partnership within a team or group. They pointed out the purpose of developing partnership like as shown below.
“Partnership is very important to us because it is much related in retaining
members. The different extent of developing partnership remains different influence on retaining volunteers. Being friends with partner and being colleagues with partner are two different issues. ” (V5_P.5)
“For me, my partners and I are like friends when working together. We have
strong partnership supporting us and that makes our team more firmed and stable.” (V6_P.6)
“Partnership is like a foundation of a team. Building partnership with other members can help volunteers more committed to the team and he or she is likely to stay longer with the team.”(V1_P.6)
Volunteer managers correspondingly made statement about building partnership from the perspective of management.
“We hope they (volunteers and leaders) can know each other more and getting
closer to each other as well by building partnership. They won’t leave because of the resignation of their leaders or people who have connection with them.”
(VM2_P.6)
“We try our best to help every member in our team building up strong and stable
partnership. The sense of belongings remained in partnership can help to bring everyone together. Moreover, members are likely to stay in the team for longer time because of partnership.” (VM6_P.6)
On the other hand, one of the volunteer managers offered his solution about how he helped his members realized the purpose of building partnership and how they actually achieved it.
“I adopted a theory of “Six Degrees of Separation“ at the beginning of building partnership. For instance, each member in our team will at least know six people and say their names out fluently. Therefore, we can make sure that everyone can have a small network in a team. Afterwards, we will keep reorganizing each small network by randomly changing members in each group. The more people that an individual know in a group organization, the more firmed relationship he or she can develop with the team and organization. In a word, this is the purpose why we make efforts on developing partnership. It makes an individual more committed to the team. He or she is unlikely to leave a team and organization alone with the people who has closed relationship with him or her because what this individual care is the whole team. Last but not least, every one is likely to stay longer with the team because his or her life already closely connected to this team.”(VM4_P.6)
The solution proposed by this experienced volunteers manager was very successful in his organization. After summarizing the feedbacks of other interviewees, the researcher found out there were some similarities of developing partnership among other organizations. The result was stated in the next item.
Building partnership in formal and informal way.
There were mainly two ways of developing partnership in a team. One is formal way which means developing partnership when working together with volunteers and leaders. In addition, organization regularly holds activities for volunteers and leaders helping them getting closer to each other and developing partnership. Two volunteer who has been a volunteer and experienced in leading volunteers for many years stated the purpose of developing partnership as below.
“We put great emphasis on the development of partnership and hope to enhance the partnership among volunteers and leaders through holding regular meetup for everyone. We are convinced that the more your partner getting to know you and the whole organization, the more firmed relationship be built. Additionally, people are likely to overcome difficulties for their partner or organization when having the partnership with others.” (V4_P.3)
“We have monthly meeting and encourage everyone to share their opinions and
“We have monthly meeting and encourage everyone to share their opinions and