Incentives and volunteering: the debate continues

By Rejoice Shumba

“Volunteers offer their services for various, often complex reasons, ranging from altruistic to self-serving, and they are motivated by different incentives” (Pawlby, 2003).

Many people argue that the receiving of monetary benefits by volunteers and people involved in service programmes is at odds with the spirit of voluntarism and that it encourages dependency. On the other hand, it is clear that the provision of financial compensation or material benefit is an essential element in the provision of service, considering that in developing countries most of the volunteers are poor and require incentives to sustain their participation.

The research conducted by Theresa Wilson in Zambia in 2006 as part of a five-country study on civic service and volunteering in SADC by VOSESA (Wilson, 2007) gives a fresh perspective to the debate. Her findings show that, when servers are motivated by the desire to serve and receive the recognition that comes with it, their volunteering experience is perceived as positive. Conversely, when they are motivated by material gain, and fail to benefit from the organisation, they perceive the experience as a negative one.

Wilson shows that even when volunteers are not financially secure, there are those volunteers whose main motivation is their desire to help others and whose emotional needs are fulfilled through volunteering. This finding is supported by a Malawi-based study conducted by Isabelle Uny, which examined the various factors and motivations contributing to community volunteering. Among these volunteers, the main motivations were a concern for orphans and vulnerable children, a moral obligation to help, and a declared love for the work undertaken. It was found that for the most part, the incentives offered by the volunteer organisation were not a motivation. The main factors influencing the participants volunteering was their spirituality, links of reciprocity reinforcing social capital and a certain routinisation (Uny, 2007). It may be, however, that the age of the volunteers in the Uny study could have had an impact on their orientation. Most of these volunteers were older women.

Nevertheless, incentives do constitute a major motivational factor for low-income and unemployed individuals who make up the majority of volunteers in the southern African context. Although the incentives offered by volunteer organisations may be small, or non-financial, they are often sufficient to motivate many poor people to volunteer. At the same time, many volunteer-involving organisations are not sure whether it is sustainable to spend their limited resources on incentives for volunteers.

The debate on incentives for volunteers centres on two issues: Should volunteers get incentives? If they should, what kind of incentives should they get?

Types of incentives
Different types of incentives are offered by volunteer organisations, depending on the type of organisation and who their funders are. International volunteer organisations usually offer monetary incentives such as payment of a salary/stipend, transport or clothing allowance or a medical allowance.

Non-monetary incentives include community recognition and respect for the volunteers’ work, personal growth and development, appropriate training and skills acquisition, supervision and peer support, identification with a group, (badges, T-shirts etc.), and certificates of attendance.

Payments in kind can consist of intangible benefits such as assistance with cooking, provision of food and housing, help with agricultural work and childcare. In-kind benefits can also be material resources necessary for the work of the volunteers, for example, bicycles, gifts (T-shirts), handouts (fertiliser) and home-based care kits.

According to the research conducted by Moleni and Gallagher (2006), which was also as part of VOSESA’s five-country study on civic service and volunteering in SADC, volunteers perceived the skills development and work experience they received as increasing their employment opportunities and therefore regarded them as incentives.

The provision of training is an important motivating factor for young people. They are also motivated by small allowances for lunch, travel costs and out-of-pocket expenses provided by some funding organisations during training sessions.

Challenges
Giving incentives to volunteers poses a number of challenges to organisations:

• Funding for incentives may not be sustainable in the long run.
• The amount paid could be very little, causing dissatisfaction among volunteers.
• Unrealistic expectations of formal employment and a market-related salary may be created.

Offering incentives to volunteers may also create problems between volunteer-involving organisations. It is common practice for volunteers to leave organisations that do not provide incentives and to flood organisations that do.

Although offering incentives to volunteers is difficult to sustain, it is an important strategy for attracting the volunteers and keeping them interested in their work. Most volunteers, especially in southern Africa, are unemployed. It therefore becomes unrealistic for people to work without any monetary compensation, even though they may want to volunteer, because they and their families have to survive. It is even more difficult for the males to volunteer without receiving any monetary compensation because, traditionally, they must provide for their families.

References
Moleni CM and Gallagher BM (2007) Youth, service and development in Malawi. In Patel L and Mupedziswa R (eds) (2007) Research Partnerships Build the Service Field in Africa: Special Issue on Civic Service in the Southern African Development Community, Johannesburg: Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa, The Social Work Practitioner-Researcher, Journal of Social Development in Africa. A joint issue of The Social Work Practitioner-Researcher, University of Johannesburg and the Journal of Social Development in Africa, School of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe.

Pawlby I (2003) What shall we call ‘civic service?’ A Commentary. In Perold H, Stroud S and Sherraden M (eds) Service Enquiry: Service in the 21st Century. Johannesburg: Global Service Institute and Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa. First Edition.

Uny E (2007) Factors and motivations contributing to community volunteers participation in a nursery feeding project in Malawi. Unspecified paper.

Wilson T (2007) Incentives and volunteerism in Zambia: A review. In Patel L and Mupedziswa R (eds) (2007) Research Partnerships Build the Service Field in Africa: Special Issue on Civic Service in the Southern African Development Community, Johannesburg: Volunteer and Service Enquiry Southern Africa, The Social Work Practitioner-Researcher, Journal of Social Development in Africa. A joint issue of The Social Work Practitioner-Researcher, University of Johannesburg and the Journal of Social Development in Africa, School of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe.