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JMD
29,6 Attracting and managing
volunteers in local government
Enamul Choudhury
592 Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA

Received 24 August 2009

Revised 16 January 2010 Abstract
12 February 2010 Purpose – This study seeks to understand the relation between public volunteerism and the role of
Accepted 17 February 2010 local government agencies to attract and manage volunteers.
Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on purposive sampling, comprising 37 cities
within a 50-mile radius around Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Administrators in these cities responded to an
e-mail survey. The study also uses a content analysis of homepages of the sample cities.
Findings – While volunteerism is found to be widely valued, most agencies also seem to underutilize
their capacities in attracting volunteers and valuing their contributions. This is particularly reflected
in their homepage design. There also seems to be an underutilization of volunteers in emergency
management and homeland security-related programs.
Practical implications – The paper offers an analytical frame to apply professional management
tools that can be replicated in other contexts of volunteer management. The study also makes an
empirical case for integrating volunteer management in agency activities and in their web sites. This
requires giving systematic organizational attention and support to improve volunteer management.
Originality/value – The study makes a small contribution to volunteer management literature by
adopting a replicable framework of professional management and offering an empirical snapshot of
the status of volunteer management in local government agencies.
Keywords Voluntary actions, Local government, Human resource management, Worldwide web
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Management Development
Vol. 29 No. 6, 2010
pp. 592-603
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0262-1711
DOI 10.1108/02621711011046558
Introduction
Increasing volunteer participation and their effective utilization have become
important arguments in advancing democratic governance (Vigoda, 2002; Brudney,
1990a). A variety of factors affect the demand and supply of volunteers. They range
from demographic (growth of senior citizens, value shifts among the youth) to the
mode of political participation (electronic, social, and cultural). Volunteer participation
has expanded beyond the traditional modes of oversight, passive service, or
co-production. In fact, most scholars and commentators on e-democracy and
e-government predict greater use of information and communication technologies to
further expand citizen participation and volunteerism (Meliski and Holzer, 2007; Mele,
2008). The phenomenal growth of ICT in the public domain has led one commentator to
label current citizen activism as “citizen sourcing” (Torre, 2007, p. 134). In fact, a whole
new kind of volunteer participation has emerged – virtual volunteering. Similarly, on
the demographic front, researchers are also predicting increased volunteerism,
particularly from the retiring baby-boomers (Cohen, 2008).
In this changing context of volunteerism the matching of volunteer interests with
agency needs has emerged as a key issue of management development (Brudney,
1995a). For the non-profit sector many agencies and web sites precisely address this
need. In the public sector many states and local governments have established
volunteer offices to coordinate the volunteering effort of its citizens (Ellis, 1998). These Attracting and
are system-wide efforts. However, at the local level there also needs to be a focused managing
effort by agencies to assess and enhance their capacity to attract and manage
volunteers. Not much work has addressed this aspect of volunteer management (Hager volunteers
and Brudney, 2008). Therefore, to reinforce the importance of public volunteerism, and
offer some empirical assessment of local agency capacity, the paper addresses and is
organized around the following two questions: 593
(1) What is the nature and salience of citizen volunteerism in local public agencies?
(2) In what ways local public agencies are incorporating professional management
in attracting and utilizing volunteers?

Methodology
The paper combines a representative literature on volunteer management with a short
online survey of volunteer management in cities located in the Southwest Ohio and
Northern Kentucky region of the USA. The survey was conducted in a two step
process, an online questionnaire survey conducted in 2006, followed by a content
analysis of agency web sites in 2007. Because, the study was sponsored by the Greater
Cincinnati Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the
Seasongood Foundation, both wanting to know the status of public sector volunteerism
in the region, the study sample is purposive.
The study sample was selected using the city of Cincinnati’s zip code 45202 as the
baseline. Cities within a 50-mile radius of that zip code and with population of 8,000
and greater were included in the study. Thus, a total of 37 county, city, police, fire, and
emergency management officials completed the online survey. A follow up survey of
the web sites of the sample cities was conducted to get an understanding of the use of
web sites in reaching out and recruiting volunteers. The indicator of “clearly
advertised” was used for identifying displays of an advertisement and/or link for
prospective volunteers with a script in font size greater than that of the lowest case
used for any narratives on the homepage. A second indicator, “ease of access” was also
used to assess the degree to which the web advertisement of volunteer positions and its
links were:
.
easily accessible from the homepage;
.
clearly identifiable on the homepage; and
.
functioned smoothly in transitioning to related web pages.

I am thankful to the ASPA intern, Mr Jason Dewitt, for administering the survey and
coding the data.

The nature and salience of public volunteering

Most volunteers are attracted to non-profit organizations, particularly religious ones,
and are considered a distinctive asset of the sector (Cohen, 2008, p. 34). However,
citizens also volunteer in public agencies at the national, state, and local levels (Ellis,
1998), but are yet to earn the status of an asset. Within the public sector, while national
service has attracted most attention and assessment, and there has been some
assessment of state efforts, assessment of local government efforts lags far behind.
Assessment is an important issue, because, surveys of volunteering in the public sector
JMD show a steady rate of citizen participation which vary between 10 percent and 20
29,6 percent (Liao-Troth, 2008; Brudney, 1990a; Morley, 1989). Volunteerism also registers a
significant but short-lived increase when catastrophic events like 9/11 and Katrina hit
the country (Gazley and Brudney, 2005).
Like other levels of government, local governments are an important avenue of
volunteer service (Cuthill and Warburton, 2005; Brudney, 1990a, 1995a; Sundeen, 1990;
594 Duncombe, 1985). Citizens volunteer in local governments in varied activities – Police,
Fire, Parks, Recreation, Library, Education, Arts, Tax assistance, etc. However,
volunteerism in most of these services occurs in auxiliary capacity and in episodic
form. Whatever be the form, citizen volunteerism serves important needs of local
government agencies – both practical and symbolic. It does so either directly through
volunteers working in public agencies, or indirectly, through volunteers working for
non-profit organizations that are in contracting arrangements with government.
For many local governments, volunteer service is also considered an important
component of what has come to be labeled as government by proxy (Brudney, 1990b).
There are multiple ways in which public volunteers adds value to agency performance:
from assisting agencies in their work activities, service delivery and cost management,
to enhancing community relations. The values that volunteerism add are of two kinds
– tangible and intangible. Tangible benefits include making it possible to continue a
service despite budget cuts (Brudney, 1990a; Vizza, 1990) or improving the
effectiveness of the paid staff (Ellis, 1996). Many public services, especially public
safety agencies under homeland security now require active citizen cooperation for
their policy and programmatic success. In fact, at the first responder level,
volunteerism is considered an integral part of homeland security (Simpson and Strang,
2004; Gerber et al., 2005). Intangible benefits of volunteering include reinforcing the
value of citizenship, bringing unique citizen perspective into the agency (Brudney,
1990a, p. xviii), bringing special qualities like emotional support into public agencies
(Brudney, 1990a, p. 67), and drawing community support to a program (Brudney,
1990a).
Scholars have pointed out that the net benefit of volunteerism is quite high and
occurs mainly through the many intangible benefits that volunteers bring to an agency
(Ellis, 1996; Hager and Brudney, 2005, pp. 29-30). However, simply waiting for more
volunteers or maintaining the status quo on volunteerism will not guarantee the value
adding advantages of public volunteering. Their realization depends on the agency
level capacity to attract and manage volunteers on a regular basis (Hager and Brudney,
2008, Brudney, 1990a, 1995a; Rehnborg and DeSpain, 2003).

Adoption of professional management tools to build agency capacity

Scholars of voluntary administration have identified agency capacity as an enduring
obstacle of effective volunteer management (Hager and Brudney, 2008; Brudney,
1990a, 1995b; Sundeen, 1990; Safrit and Schmiesing, 2004; Gazley and Brudney, 2005;
Gerber et al., 2005). Agency capacity ranges from having policy restrictions (legal or
labor requirements) to process shortcomings (agencies lacking funds and staff to utilize
volunteers). In recognition of this need, states and local governments have begun to
take steps to enhance agency capacity, for example, changing laws to address liability
issues. The passage of the Voluntary Protection Act of 1997 was a significant
milestone in this endeavor.
 Agency capacity also includes being aware of and providing for the costs of an Attracting and
effective volunteer program (Gazley and Brudney, 2005; Brudney, 1990a, p. 28; Graff, managing
2006). Another aspect of capacity is the utilization of available technology. Web sites
serve as new doorways for citizens to engage their government. Thus, the design and volunteers
use of web sites are also critical factors not only in facilitating citizen-government
interaction (Meliski and Holzer, 2007), but also as a means to attract and manage
volunteers (Ellis, 2002). Table I identifies the management functions that the literature 595
on voluntary management generally identifies as important requisites of professional
management. The literature also points out that there is no one-best-way approach, and
effective requisites are sector and even agency specific, as are the patterns of their
adoption (Hager and Brudney, 2008).

A framework to understand capacity

In order to assess agency capacity, the paper has adopted the widely known general
principles of management as a conceptual framework to categorize the functional

Functional requisites Illustrative activities in volunteer management

Planning Organizational policy on volunteering
Public law and union restrictions on using volunteers
Staff involvement in planning the volunteer program
Educating citizens to volunteer service
Increasing access to volunteering
Designing programs that allow both instrumental and altruistic motives to
be satisfied
Assigning job duties and creating small but “make a difference”
opportunities
Organizing Matching volunteers and organizational needs
Linking volunteer service to specific unit/department (integration with the
agency)
Assigning a designated supervisor/director to maintain the integration
Staffing Attracting and retaining able volunteers
Training employees in volunteer management
Espousing ideals to attract volunteers (mission statement and its relation to
unit functions)
Using volunteers themselves as recruiters. Creating opportunities for
networking
Using non-profit partners to attract volunteers
Effective web site design and its use to recruit volunteers
Directing Getting top level support
Providing adequate funding for volunteer program
Overcoming staff resistance. Creating an enabling organizational culture
Evaluating Evaluating and recognizing volunteer efforts
Obtain feedback from volunteers on:
communicating with paid staff to overcome insider-outsider barriers Table I.
(using informal conference, shared break period, suggestion box, bulletin Elements of professional
board, newsletter, social events, annual banquet of recognition, training management of volunteer
session), and measuring accomplishments programs
JMD requisites of effective volunteer management. Conceptual frameworks help us “to think
29,6 about phenomena, to order material, revealing patterns” (Cuthill and Warburton, 2005,
p. 109). The pattern that is most important to understand management capacity is that
of management functions. In public administration, as an ordering device of
management functions, the general principles of management (which goes by the
acronym of POSDCoRB) have stood the test of time. The acronym stands for Planning,
596 Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting. For the
purpose of this paper I have combined the organizing and coordinating functions under
the term “organizing”, and the directing and budgeting functions under the term
“directing”, and have also used the term “evaluating” to represent the reporting
function. The framework is more broader than the one proposed by Cuthill and
Warburton (2005, p. 117), which focuses on the linkages among recruitment, training,
and program evaluation functions of volunteer management.

Findings on agency capacity

These functional requisites of effective volunteer management, as important as they
are in theory, require empirical specification in terms of their agency level use in order
to improve management practice. The following discussion presents data from an
online survey and the content analysis of agency web sites on the level of professional
management of volunteers in 37 cities. Table II reports the survey results for each
functional area of professional management.

On planning
In order for volunteers to have a positive experience and for agencies to utilize their
contributions, both have to be planned. The presence of volunteers in agencies across
the study region indicates that some degree of planning is in place. The survey asked
respondents if their agency had a volunteer program. While 83.7 percent of
the respondents indicated that their agency had a volunteer program, 75.8 percent of
respondents also indicated that they had openings for volunteers. Both facts show a
healthy amount of volunteerism occurring at the local level. The fact that 26.6 percent
of the respondents consider having a pool of citizens to volunteer as a crucial requisite
also indicates the recognition of the importance of planning.
In contrast, it is discouraging to see the relative absence of volunteerism (6.9
percent) in both emergency management and homeland security programs. An
overwhelming majority of respondents (93.1 percent) indicated that volunteers work in
positions other than emergency management and homeland security. In this context, it
is important to mention that when respondents recorded the positions of volunteers in
their open-ended responses, several indicated the volunteers’ primary position is
related to police, fire, and emergency response services. Therefore, it is possible that
respondents did not fully equate the available choice of “emergency management” or
“homeland security” with police, fire, and emergency medical services. The three
Citizen Corps volunteer and emergency management programs (Community
Emergency Management Teams, Volunteers in Police Service, and Fire Corps) were
found to be underutilized. Considering that all the eight counties (where the 37 cities
are located) have emergency management and/or homeland security programs, one
might expect that volunteer involvement in the Community Emergency Response
Team program to be quite high.
 Attracting and
Questionnaire items on agency activity Response
Management function (see Appendix for the question wording) Number Percent managing
Planning Agency has volunteer program 31 83.7
volunteers
Agency has current openings for volunteers 22 75.8
Volunteers serving in emergency programs 2 6.9
Volunteers serving in other programs 27 93.1 597
Having an available pool of volunteers 28 26.6
Gaining knowledge of successful program 10 9.5
Organizing Use of formal supervisor for volunteers 22 75.8
Commitment of volunteers: Excellent 15 51.7
Commitment of volunteers: Good 12 41.3
Commitment of volunteers: Fair 2 6.9
Commitment of volunteers: Poor 0
Skill level of volunteers: Experienced 12 41.3
Skill level of volunteers: Semi-experienced 15 51.7
Skill level of volunteers: Amateur 2 6.9
Having time and staff to devote to volunteer program 29 27.6
Staffing: recruitment Newspaper 8 9.3
Radio 1 1.6
Television 0
Public events 11 12.7
Personal contact 23 26.7
Walk-ins 12 13.9
Staffing: web site use Use of web sites 13 15.1
Clear advertisement of volunteering 7 18.9
Ease of site navigation 4 10.8
Staffing: value adding Using written job descriptions: All positions 7 24.1
Using written job descriptions: Most positions 6 20.6
Using written job descriptions: Few positions 4 13.79
Using written job descriptions: Not available 12 41.38
Having knowledge of liability issues 9 8.57
Training of volunteers 25 86.21
Table II.
Directing Top level support for volunteer programs 5 4.76
Volunteer management
Funding to operate or expand volunteer programs 22 20.95
functions in local
Evaluating Use of rewards (stipend, benefits) for volunteers 10 34.48 government agencies

On organizing
Strong support for professional management of volunteers is indicated when 75.8
percent of the respondents reported that volunteers are formally supervised. This fact
also indicates some level of effective integration of the volunteers with the regular staff.
Thus, it is not surprising to find a high opinion of volunteers among the respondents.
While an overwhelming majority of respondents (93.1 percent) held that volunteers
demonstrated a good or excellent dedication and work ethic, another majority of
respondents (93.1 percent) further indicated that their volunteers were at least
semi-experienced in performing their assigned tasks. The positive valuation of the
volunteers is further conveyed when 27.6 percent of the responses convey that agencies
need more time and staff to devote to their volunteer programs.
JMD On staffing (recruitment)
29,6 When asked about the use of recruitment methods used in the agency, 26.7 percent of
the respondents mentioned “personal contacts” as the preferred method, followed by
the use of web sites (15.1 percent), walk-ins (13.9 percent), and public events (12.7
percent). The fact that web sites are relied on as a tool of recruitment and ranked higher
in usefulness over “newspapers” is an encouraging sign that local governments are
598 recognizing the use of ICT and its integration with human resource planning. However,
the follow-up content analysis of the city web sites reveal that cities have a long way to
go in using web sites as contemplated in the e-government initiative.
A significant majority of the selected cities seems to be underutilizing their
web-pages for volunteer recruitment. Only seven (24.1 percent) cities fulfilled the
requirement of “clear advertisement” in their homepages. The seven cities meeting the
requirement simply demonstrate that volunteerism program and contact information
was provided online for at least one of the following: citywide, police, or fire service
opportunities. However, it should be noted that a couple of web sites had volunteer
program advertisements and/or links in their web sites but not in their homepages.
The “ease of usage” analysis of the web sites also showed additional shortcomings.
The ease test was applied to each homepage. Of the seven homepages providing clear
advertisement, only four (10.8 percent) met the ease of usage requirement.

On staffing (value adding)

A majority of respondents (55.1 percent) indicated that few or none of their volunteer
positions have written job descriptions. However, 44.8 percent reported that, most, if
not all volunteer positions in their organization have written job descriptions. It is also
a very positive sign of proactive professional management when an overwhelming
majority of the respondents (86.2 percent) acknowledged the use of training and formal
supervision for new volunteers. On the other hand, professional management is
undermined when only a very small number of respondents (8.5 percent) show the
awareness of liability issues in using volunteers.

On directing
Among the responses on the needs of volunteer programs in public agencies, only 20.9
percent of the respondents addressed funding to be an important need, while another
4.7 percent respondents identified leadership support as important. In the volunteer
management literature, both conditions are rated as very high in terms of importance.
The reason that they received less emphasis in the sampled cities could be that, the
respondents considered their current leadership to be supportive of their volunteer
programs, as well as recognized the likely scenario of no budget increase for volunteer
programs.

On evaluating
The weakest part of volunteer management seems to lie in the evaluation function.
Here, the status quo is reflected in the responses to the assessment and recognition of
volunteer contributions. In the sample cities, the giving of stipends, rewards, and
benefits appear to be severely lacking with 65.5 percent of the respondents indicating
that volunteers were not offered such rewards or benefits. Clearly, the lack of adequate
funding as noted by the respondents could be a partial reason why this is the case.
However, in the survey, the lack of funding is not identified as a very serious issue. Attracting and
Therefore, it seems to be that, the relative lack of integration of volunteer activities managing
with the regular work activities of the agency may have led to the little use of rewards
and recognition of volunteers. The literature identifies recognition and reward to be volunteers
key factors in attracting future volunteers. In a time when agencies are expected to
show results of their performance, a system of recognition and reward of volunteers is
a key factor to highlight the contribution of volunteer program in agency performance. 599
Discussion
The study shows that some cities regularly utilize volunteers in some fashion. It also
shows that agencies have adopted professional management tools in certain aspects of
volunteer management but also neglected them in other very important aspects. From
this finding we may conclude that while volunteers are effectively attracted by
agencies they are not so professionally managed.
Many cities do not utilize volunteers as well as they could, and are reluctant to
invest time and resource in improving their volunteer program. For example, it is
surprising to find the lack of interest to learn from best practices. Only 9.5 percent of
the respondents consider learning from successful programs to be important. The
finding is surprising given the presence of a nationally reputed volunteer program in
the nearby city of Kettering. In general, the data seems to indicate that agencies are not
investing in future improvements or are interested to even explore best practices in the
present. Therefore, the focus seems to be on maintaining the status quo.
The lack of investment in attracting volunteers stands out as a fundamental
weakness in the management capacity of local public agencies to effectively attract,
use, and value volunteers as an integral part of their operation. Even, in relation to the
second most utilized tool of recruitment – use of web sites, the data show a significant
lack of promoting volunteerism via homepages. Considering that homepages can and
often provide the first online presentation for local governments and their various
departments, it seems that an important advertising resource remains underutilized.
While formal supervision and training found emphasis in the management of
volunteers, formal evaluation and recognition of contributions did not. Thus the study
shows the need for improvement in each of these functional areas of professional
management.

Conclusion
Building organizational capacity is not only an organizational issue but a political one,
which sets the tone and goal of governance and provides the resources and support to
agency activities. In a climate of fiscal strain, it may be extremely difficult to allocate
new budgetary or staff resources to improve volunteer management. Keeping this in
mind, one can emphasize more on management attention as the means of improving
volunteer management. For example, improving job design and performance
evaluation of volunteers as well as setting up agency internship programs in
partnership with local chapters of professional associations to attract and recognize
them.
Finally, the findings of this study need to be read in context and in relation to its
shortcomings. The context is a micro unit of local government, and therefore, the
findings may have limited applicability across contexts. Also, the study did not
JMD analyze the concept of volunteerism widely or in-depth to make valid generalizations
29,6 on the status of volunteerism and volunteer management in cities. For example, the
study did not analyze volunteer programs in townships or smaller cities with a
population less than 8,000 residents. Still, given the paucity of empirical studies on
volunteer management at the local level, this study provides a snapshot of the
importance of volunteerism in public service and the reality of management capacity to
600 realize it.

References
Brudney, J.L. (1990a), Fostering Volunteer Programs in the Public Sector, Jossey-Bass, San
Francisco, CA.
Brudney, J.L. (1990b), “Expanding the government-by-proxy construct: volunteers in the delivery
of public services”, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Vol. 19, pp. 315-28.
Brudney, J.L. (1995a), “Preparing the organization for volunteers”, in Connors, T.D. (Ed.),
The Volunteer Management Handbook, John Wiley, New York, NY, pp. 36-60.
Brudney, J.L. (1995b), “The involvement of volunteers in the delivery of services: myth and
management”, in Hays, S.L. and Kearney, R.C. (Eds), Public Personnel Administration:
Problems and Prospects, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, pp. 319-30.
Cohen, R. (2008), “Volunteering by the numbers”, The Nonprofit Quarterly, Fall, pp. 34-41.
Cuthill, M. and Warburton, J. (2005), “A conceptual framework for volunteer management in local
government”, Urban Policy and Research, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 109-22.
Duncombe, S. (1985), “Volunteers in city government: advantages, disadvantages, and uses”,
National Civic Review, Vol. 74 No. 9.
Ellis, S.J. (1996), From the Top Down: The Executive Role in Volunteer Program Success, rev. ed.,
Energize, Inc.
Ellis, S.J. (1998), “Volunteerism and the government sector”, available at: http://usinfo.state.gov/
journals/itsv/0998/ijse/ellis.htm/ (accessed 19 November 2007).
Ellis, S.J. (2002), “Your web site: does it welcome prospective volunteers?”, Nonprofit Times, May.
Gazley, B. and Brudney, J.L. (2005), “Volunteer involvement in local government after September 11:
the continuing question of capacity”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 65 No. 2.
Gerber, B.J., Cohen, D.B., Cannon, B., Patterson, D. and Stewart, K. (2005), “On the front line:
American cities and the challenge of homeland security preparedness”, Urban Affairs
Review, Vol. 41 No. 2.
Graff, L. (2006), “Declining profit margin: when volunteers costs more than they return”,
The International Journal of Volunteer Administration, Vol. 24 No. 1.
Hager, M.A. and Brudney, J.L. (2005), “Net benefits: weighing the challenges and benefits of
volunteers”, The Journal of Volunteer Administration, Vol. 23 No. 1.
Hager, M.A. and Brudney, J.L. (2008), “Management capacity and retention of volunteers”,
in Liao-Troth, M. (Ed.), Challenges in Volunteer Management, Information Age Publishing,
Charlotte, NC, pp. 9-28.
Liao-Troth, M. (2008), “Introduction”, in Liao-Troth, M. (Ed.), Challenges in Volunteer
Management, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC, pp. 3-8.
Mele, V. (2008), “Streaming volunteer management through information communication and
communication technologies”, in Liao-Troth, M. (Ed.), Challenges in Volunteer
Management, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC, pp. 69-90.
Meliski, J. and Holzer, M. (2007), “Assessing digital government at the local level worldwide: Attracting and
an analysis of municipal websites throughout the world”, in Norris, D. (Ed.), Current Issues
and Trends in E-Government Research, Cyber Tech, Hershey, PA, pp. 1-21. managing
Morley, E. (1989), “Patterns and the use of alternative service delivery approaches”, Municipal volunteers
Yearbook, 1989, International City Managers Association, Washington, DC.
Rehnborg, S.J. and DeSpain, M. (2003), “Investing in volunteerism: recommendations emerging
from the study of the impact of volunteers in Texas State agencies”, The Journal of 601
Volunteer Administration, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 33-8.
Safrit, R.D. and Schmiesing, R.J. (2004), “A suggested model for contemporary volunteer
management: qualitative research bridging the professional literature with best practices”,
The Journal of Volunteer Administration, Vol. 22 No. 4.
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Leadership, Summer, pp. 12-21.

Further reading
Valente, C.F. and Manchester, L.D. (1984), Rethinking Local Services: Examining Alternative
Delivery Approaches, Information Service Special Report, No. 12, International City
Managers Association, Washington, DC.

Appendix
(1) How would you classify your organization?
.
Police
. EMS
.
Emergency management
.
Other (please specify) _________________________________
(2) Please select the areas where additional resources are needed for a volunteer program
(check all that apply):
.
Time or staff to devote to program.
.
Funding to operate or expand.
.
Knowledge of successful volunteer programming.
.
Available pool of citizens to volunteer.
.
Support of volunteerism programming from leadership.
.
Knowledge about liability issues.
.
Other (please specify) _________________________
JMD (3) Does your organization have a volunteer program?
29,6 .
Yes
.
No
(4) If yes, how many volunteers do you have?
.
Don’t know.
602 .
Know, (please specify approximate number of volunteers) ___________
(5) How do you recruit volunteers for your agency? (Please check all that apply):
.
Web site.
.
Newspaper.
.
Radio.
.
TV.
.
Public events.
.
Personal contacts.
.
Walk-ins.
.
Other (please specify) ___________.
(6) Which type of recruitment has been most successful for your organization?
.
Web site.
.
Newspaper.
.
Radio.
. TV.
.
Public events.
.
Personal contacts.
.
Walk-ins.
. Other (please specify) _____________________________________________
(7) Do you offer a training program for new volunteers?
.
Yes.
.
No.
(8) Do you offer stipends, rewards, or benefits to volunteers?
.
Yes.
.
No.
(9) Overall, how would you rate the commitment of your volunteers? (i.e. dedication, work
ethic, etc.):
.
Excellent.
.
Good.
.
Fair.
.
Poor.
(10) Overall, how would you rate the skill-level of your volunteers? (Experience or skills in
relation to tasks assigned to them):
.
Experienced.
.
Semi-experienced.
.
Amateur.
 (11) Do you currently have openings for volunteers in your organization? Attracting and
.
Yes. managing
.
No.
volunteers
(12) What is the primary position area that volunteers fulfill in your agency?
.
Emergency management.
.
Homeland Security. 603
.
Other (please specify) ____________________________________
(13) Do you utilize reserve (non-regular, on-call in emergency) volunteers in an emergency
management capacity?
.
Yes.
.
No.
(14) Do you utilize a specific formal supervisor for your volunteers?
.
Yes.
.
No.
(15) Please indicate the use of written job descriptions for volunteer positions in your agency:
. All volunteer positions have written job descriptions.
.
Most volunteer positions have written job descriptions.
.
Few volunteer positions have written job descriptions.
.
There are no job descriptions for volunteer positions.
(16) Is there anything that you would like to add to this survey (comments, questions, or
concerns)?
For example, if you do not have a volunteer program, would you like to have one? Do you
feel a need for volunteer resources? Feel free to add any comments that you would like.

About the author

Enamul Choudhury teaches in the Department of Urban Affairs and Geography at Wright State
University. His research focuses on issues of administration, budgeting, and ethics, on which he
has published articles in Administration & Society, Review of Public Personnel Administration,
International Journal of Public Administration, and American Behavioral Scientist. Enamul
Choudhury can be contacted at: enamul.choudhury@wright.edu

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