João F. Proença

Do Occasional Volunteers Repeat their Experience

Understanding the experiences of volunteers is critical to the effective management of non-profit organizations. Many organizations benefit greatly from the work of volunteers; however, little is known about the interest of occasional volunteers in repeating their experience. Our research aims to understand occasional volunteers and their intention to repeat the experience. To achieve this objective, it is essential to understand volunteers’ motivations and the influence of volunteers’ previous experiences in motivations. At the same time, it is necessary to know how these factors may impact satisfaction and therefore, the intention to repeat the experience in the future. For this research, we analyzed the campaigns organized by the Food Bank Against Hunger (FBAH) in Portugal. Through online questionnaires, data were collected at two different moments: one month before and one month after the campaign. Results show five motivations categories: purposive, understanding, protection and enhancement, group identification and career. The research shows that motivations vary depending on volunteers’ previous experience, and this fact may also influence the level of satisfaction with the experience. All volunteers presented a high level of satisfaction and this variable influences volunteers intention of repeating, that is, volunteers wanting to be engaged in future campaigns.

Enabling factors for developing a social services network

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the main factors contributing to the development of networks between public, nonprofit and private organizations providing social services. Industrial marketing and purchasing literature was mobilized to analyze those networks, and a case study research was used to discuss how actors, activities and resources are interrelated to produce a collective and cooperative action to provide social services to population. The research has contributions for theory and practice. First, the ongoing interaction and exchange, through the implementation of collective activities leads to building ties and stable relationships that contribute to the mobilization of stakeholders. Second, the informality of interactions facilitates relationship building among stakeholders insofar as it facilitates the coordination and cooperation in the network, reinforcing trust relationships. Finally, performing collective activity requires that the actors interact, share resources, adapt their internal structures and develop interdependencies between actors, resources and activities, leading to the development of the perceived network value.