The unpaid labor of volunteers requires an explanation for its motivation. Three theories of volunteer reward are examined: leisure, investment, and a perceived link between volunteer behavior and subsequent outcomes. Volunteers at a crisis intervention center were surveyed, and a set of patterns of volunteer motivation was identified. Implications are drawn for volunteer-employing organizations and public policy.Volunteer labor represents an important resource in the American economy. Although data are scarce, estimates by Weisbrod (1982) suggest that the amount of volunteer time given in 1973 was equal in hours to roughly 20 percent of the paid employment in nonprofit organizations. Clotfelter (1985) estimates that the value of time devoted to volunteer activities is probably as large as the aggregate level of monetary giving to not-forprofit causes. While much volunteer work requires little in the way of specialized skills, some volunteer positions require extensive training and can carry with them levels of stress and responsibility typical of remunerative jobs. Agencies that invest in developing volunteers' skills face obvious costs when turnover rates within the volunteer pool are high. Such agencies must depend on nonmonetary rewards to retain members of their volunteer work force. This paper uses a small but rich data set to explore the unpaid labor supply behavior of one group of highly trained volunteers. The data have been extracted from a survey designed to detect possible motives for volunteering, such as leisure value from socializing and investment in valuable skills (&dquo;human capital&dquo;). Our research questions deal with the hypothesis that volunteer time is analogous to monetary giving and that it is motivated principally by a desire to see some worthwhile activity undertaken. If this hypothesis is correct, a rational volunteer should prefer to support a given activity with the combination of time and money that is least costly to the volunteer. For example, if an activity can be
Chapter 1. Introduction This paper is given to the discussion of the integral equation in which the kernel K(x, £) is continuous, but possesses first partial derivatives which are discontinuous along the line £=#. It is closely related to a previous paperf in which the case of a discontinuous kernel has been treated. The motivation of the problem and the origin of the work is there discussed. Suffice it to remark here that the present paper originated in a thesis prepared under
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