156 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 5, OCTOBER 1999
Consider the following facts
and figures. In 1995, 93 million
American adults engaged in some
kind of volunteer activity, with the
combined hours of work totaling
20.3 billion. These 93 million formal
and informal volunteers represented
49% of the adult population,
and a quarter of them devoted 5 or
more hours per week to volunteer
service. Volunteers provided tutoring
to children and illiterate adults,
companionship to the homebound,
counseling to the troubled, and
health care to the sick, among other
activities.
These facts and figures (provided
by Independent Sector, 1996) convey
several of the features that make
volunteering an intriguing psychological
phenomenon. First, although
about half of all American adults
were engaged in volunteerism, half
reported no involvement at all.
Second, among those who did volunteer,
a small fraction exhibited
high levels of involvement.
Moreover, as a form of planned
helping, volunteering is marked by
several key characteristics: The
helper must seek out the opportunity
to help, the helper arrives at this
decision after a period of deliberation,
the helper provides assistance
over time, and the helper’s decisions
about beginning to help and about
continuing to help are influenced by
whether the particular activity fits
with the helper’s own needs and
goals. The effortful, sustained, and
nonremunerative nature of volunteering
raises two fundamental
questions: Why do people decide, in
the first place, to engage in helpful
activities as volunteers? And, having
decided to volunteer, why do
people continue to serve, sometimes
for months and even years?
To answer these questions, we
have adopted a functional approach
to understanding the motivations
that prompt people to become
volunteers and that sustain
their efforts over time. Several considerations
recommend functionalist
theorizing. First, the functional
approach is a motivational perspective
that directs inquiry into the
personal and social processes that
initiate, direct, and sustain action
(Katz, 1960). Second, a core proposition
of functionalist inquiry is
that people can and do perform the
same actions in the service of different
psychological functions (e.g.,
different people engage in the same
volunteer activity but do so to fulfill
different motives). Third, the
functional approach suggests that
important psychological events,
such as embarking on a course of
volunteer activities and then maintaining
those activities over extended
periods of time, depend on
matching the motivational concerns
of individuals with situations
that can satisfy those concerns.
Finally, research stimulated by motivationally
oriented analyses of a
wide variety of cognitive, affective,
behavioral, and interpersonal
processes supports key functionalist
themes (Snyder & Cantor, 1998).
With this broad directive provided
by functionalist theorizing, we
sought to determine the precise
motivations that can be fulfilled
through participation in volunteer
service. On the basis of our analyses
of the functions served by volunteering,
and findings from diverse
empirical investigations of
volunteers, we have identified and
operationalized six personal and
social functions served by volunteering
(Clary et al., 1998). These
six functions (see Table 1) are consistent
with the results of previous
studies of people’s reasons for volunteering.
Thus, the framework of
the functional approach systematizes
and organizes a literature
that was previously largely atheoretical
in orientation (Clary &
Snyder, 1991).
With the conceptual foundation
provided by the functional apASSESSING
MOTIVATIONS
FOR VOLUNTEERISM
FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
TO VOLUNTEERISM
Published by Blackwell Publishers, Inc.
The Motivations to Volunteer:
Theoretical and Practical Considerations
E. Gil Clary and Mark Snyder1
Department of Psychology, College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, Minnesota (E.G.C.),
and Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
(M.S.)
Abstract
Why do significant numbers
of people engage in the unpaid
helping activities known as
volunteerism? Drawing on
functional theorizing about the
reasons, purposes, and motivations
underlying human behavior,
we have identified six
personal and social functions
potentially served by volunteering.
In addition to developing
an inventory to assess these
motivational functions, our
program of research has explored
the role of motivation in
the processes of volunteerism,
especially decisions about becoming
a volunteer in the first
place and decisions about continuing
to volunteer.
Keywords
volunteerism; motivations;
psychological functions
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 157
proach, we created and refined the
Volunteer Functions Inventory
(VFI), an instrument that assesses
each of the six functions potentially
served by volunteering (see Table
1). In research with the VFI, we
have inquired about the motivations
of currently active volunteers
involved in a wide variety of activities,
of previous volunteers, and
even of nonvolunteers. With these
diverse samples, we have found
that the individual scales of the VFI
possess a high degree of internal
consistency (i.e., the items of each
scale relate to one another) and responses
to the scales are consistent
over time; factor analyses of responses
to the inventory have
demonstrated an internal structure
that is consistent with our six-motive
conceptualization of the functions
served by volunteering.
Moreover, the same factor structure
emerged when representative
items from the VFI were included
in a national survey about
American adults’ giving and volunteering
(Clary, Snyder, & Stukas,
1996). Finally, this factor structure
was replicated when the VFI was
used with volunteers age 50 or
older, and was found superior to
models that posited either a single
motivational dimension or a twofactor
solution (Okun, Barr, &
Herzog, 1998).
These findings from factor
analyses of the VFI are informative
about the internal structure of
motivations for volunteering.
Additionally, the VFI is informative
about the motivations themselves
and their importance to
respondents. Most typically, respondents
report that Values,
Understanding, and Enhancement
are the most important functions,
and that Career, Social, and
Protective are less important functions;
the ordering and absolute
importance, however, does vary
across groups (e.g., the Career
function is more important to
younger respondents and less important
to older ones). Furthermore,
findings concerning the importance
of the functions clearly
point to the multimotivational nature
of volunteering: Different volunteers
pursue different goals, and
the same volunteer may be pursuing
more than one goal. Indeed,
roughly two thirds of respondents
indicate having two or more important
motivations.
The finding that many volunteers
have multiple important motives
is intriguing as it speaks to
the altruism-egoism debate often
found in discussions about helping.
This debate involves two opposing
arguments: the argument
that all helpfulness is motivated by
a selfish desire to benefit oneself
versus the argument that helpfulness
is sometimes based on a selfless
concern for the other. Although
hardly offering the last
word on this long-running controversy,
our findings do suggest that
people’s motivations for performing
actions as diverse, complex,
and sustained as volunteerism are
very likely to be multifaceted. It
appears that many volunteers’ motivations
cannot be neatly classified
as either altruistic or egoistic,
both because some specific motives
combine other-interested and selfinterested
considerations and because
many people indicate that
they have both kinds of reasons for
volunteering.
Guided by the functional approach
and the VFI as a measure of
motivations for volunteering, we
have explored the role of motivations
in the processes of volunteerism—the
initiation of volunteer
service, volunteers’ satisfaction
with their experiences, and their
commitment to sustained service.
The guiding functionalist principle
here is that these decisions and beMOTIVATIONS
AND THE
VOLUNTEER PROCESS
Copyright © 1999 American Psychological Society
Table 1. Functions served by volunteering and their assessment on the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI)
Function Conceptual definition Sample VFI item
Values The individual volunteers in order to express I feel it is important to help others.
or act on important values like humanitarianism.
Understanding The volunteer is seeking to learn more about the Volunteering lets me learn through direct,
world or exercise skills that are often unused. hands-on experience.
Enhancement One can grow and develop psychologically Volunteering makes me feel better about
through volunteer activities. myself.
Career The volunteer has the goal of gaining career-related Volunteering can help me to get my foot in
experience through volunteering. the door at a place where I would like to work.
Social Volunteering allows an individual to strengthen People I know share an interest in
his or her social relationships. community service.
Protective The individual uses volunteering to reduce negative Volunteering is a good escape from my
feelings, such as guilt, or to address personal problems. own troubles.
158 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 5, OCTOBER 1999
haviors depend on the match of an
individual’s motivations to the opportunities
afforded by the volunteering
environment.
This matching hypothesis suggests
that persuasive messages can
motivate people to initiate volunteer
service to the extent that the
messages are tailored to the specific
motivations important to individual
recipients of the messages.
With our colleagues, we tested this
hypothesis using a series of videotaped
advertising messages, each
of which differed in its functional
content (Clary, Snyder, Ridge,
Miene, & Haugen, 1994). We randomly
assigned participants to either
a functionally matched or a
functionally mismatched condition
using an earlier assessment of
the motivational functions of
greatest and least importance for
them. As predicted, participants
who received a message that
matched a motivation of great importance
to them found the message
more persuasive and were
more likely to intend to volunteer
in the future than participants who
received a mismatched message.
This finding, along with a replication
that used print advertising
(Clary et al., 1998), supports the
functionalist hypothesis that attempts
to recruit volunteers will
succeed to the extent that they address
the specific motivational
functions underlying behavior and
attitudes.
The importance of matching an
individual’s motivations to the
volunteering situation does not
end with recruitment. As participation
is an ongoing and sustained
activity, functionalist theorizing
suggests that volunteers whose
motivational concerns are served
by their participation would derive
greater satisfaction than those
whose concerns are not met. In a
field study conducted with our
colleagues (Clary et al., 1998), we
first identified the functions important
and unimportant to individual
elderly volunteers (the split
between important and unimportant
functions depended on
whether participants’ scores were
above or below the median for all
participants). Several months later,
we determined the extent to which
the volunteers received functionspecific
benefits during their service
(again, based on median
splits), as well as the degree to
which they found their volunteerism
satisfying and rewarding.
Among individuals who considered
a function to be important,
those who perceived that they had
received relatively greater benefits
related to that function were more
satisfied than those who perceived
that they had received fewer benefits
relevant to it. In addition, individuals
who perceived receiving
relatively greater benefits relevant
to a function they considered important
were more satisfied than
volunteers for whom the function
was unimportant, regardless of
perceived level of benefit.
If volunteers’ satisfaction with
their volunteer service is associated
with receiving functionally relevant
benefits, then it follows that
their actual intentions to continue
serving as volunteers will also be
linked to the matching between experiences
and motivations. In support
of this hypothesis, we found
that university students who received
functionally relevant benefits
from being engaged in a program
of community service
expressed greater intentions to continue
as volunteers, both in the
short-term and in the long-term future,
than did volunteers who did
not receive functionally relevant
benefits or who received functionally
irrelevant benefits (Clary et al.,
1998). Finally, a pair of conceptually
related, longitudinal investigations
found that fulfilling important
motivations predicted actual
commitment to volunteering
(Clary & Miller, 1986; Omoto &
Snyder, 1995).
In keeping with the fact that
helping and other prosocial activities
promote smooth social functioning
and encourage social harmony,
many societies view
participation in volunteer activities
as highly desirable, and people are
encouraged through diverse avenues
of socialization to become
volunteers. In fact, some American
educational institutions are now requiring,
as opposed to inspiring,
students to participate in community
service activities as a part of
their curriculum of studies and
even as a condition of graduation
(Sobus, 1995). Although requiring
people, and particularly young
people, to engage in community
service may have desirable effects
(e.g., increasing actual participation
in the present), mandating
“volunteerism” may prove counterproductive
in the long run.
There is a body of research that
suggests that applying external
pressures to perform some action
will not necessarily lead to the behavior
once the pressures are removed,
and may even result in
shifting the locus, or origin, of the
motivational force or dynamic
from the person to the environment
(e.g., Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett,
1973).
Recently, we explored this
process in a “mandatory volunteerism”
program in which university
students were required to perform
40 hr of community service
over the course of a semester
(Stukas, Snyder, & Clary, 1999). Of
particular concern were these students’
intentions to volunteer in the
future at the conclusion of the program,
and the relation of these intentions
to students’ preservice levels of
perceived control over their decision
to volunteer and prior volunteering
experience (an operationalization of
PROMOTING
VOLUNTEERING
Published by Blackwell Publishers, Inc.
CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 159
their initial interest in this activity).
As expected, for those students who
felt that their participation was
under their own control (and thus
perceived less external control to
volunteer), greater future intentions
to volunteer were associated with
greater previous volunteer experience.
However, for those students
who felt external pressure to volunteer,
there was a slightly negative relationship
between prior experience
and future intentions to volunteer.
Moreover, these students had lower
future intentions to volunteer than
students who felt that they had retained
personal control.
Thus, volunteerism provides an
inviting opportunity to explore the
empirical debate over the immediate
and long-term impact of compelling
people to act. Our study of
mandatory volunteering is congruent
with other studies on the influence
of external constraints, particularly
those that take the form of
requirements or rewards. Overall,
this work suggests that great care
should be taken when requiring
people to perform the socially desirable
activity of volunteering.
Certainly, immediate volunteering
can be induced by requiring students
to serve, but it seems that
future choices to volunteer will
be less likely if the initial experience
is accompanied by perceptions
of external control. Our findings
suggest that a more promising
approach to promoting future involvement
in volunteerism would
couple a general requirement for
students to participate in volunteer
activities with a sense that their
particular courses of action are
under personal control. Future investigations
will be needed to explore
this possibility.
Through this program of research,
we have sought to uncover
the motivational foundations of the
sustained, ongoing, and planned
helpfulness of volunteerism.
Guided by functionalist psychological
theorizing, we have identified
diverse personal and social motivations
served by volunteering, developed
an inventory to measure
those motivational functions, and
explored their role in the volunteer
process. A recurring theme in investigations
of the motivations in
actual volunteering situations is
that volunteer behaviors do not depend
solely on the person or on the
situation, but rather depend on the
interaction of person-based dynamics
and situational opportunities.
Finally, in addition to our following
the Lewinian tradition of
emphasizing both personal and situational
forces, our work continues
the Lewinian action-research tradition
in its pursuit of both theoretical
and practical ends.
Note
1. Address correspondence to E. Gil
Clary, Department of Psychology,
College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN
55105, e-mail: gclary@stkate.edu, or
to Mark Snyder, Department of
Psychology, University of Minnesota,
75 E. River Rd., Minneapolis, MN
55455, e-mail: msnyder@umn.edu.
References
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situational influences on sustained altruism.
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Stukas, A.A., Haugen, J., & Miene, P. (1998).
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Acknowledgments—We wish to recognize
the many contributions of Arthur
Stukas, Robert Ridge, John Copeland,
Julie Haugen, and Peter Miene to this
program of research. This research has
been supported by grants from the
Gannett Foundation and Aspen
Institute’s Nonprofit Research Fund to E.
Recommended Reading
Clary, E.G., & Snyder, M. (1991). (See
References)
Clary, E.G., Snyder, M., Ridge, R.D.,
Copeland, J., Stukas, A.A.,
Haugen, J., & Miene, P. (1998).
(See References)
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CONCLUSIONS
Copyright © 1999 American Psychological Society
Gil Clary and Mark Snyder, and by
grants from the National Science
Foundation and National Institute of
Mental Health to Mark Snyder.