The purpose of this research is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current forms of cooperation between government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in emergency management in the Czech Republic, while presenting a detailed overview of the key criteria of the effective Czech model, which could be potentially used by other organizations or countries. Previous research has focused on cooperation between government and NGOs in flood risk management, but emergency management concerns more than floods. The scope has been expanded to include volunteer firefighters and rescue workers, the other NGO players in emergencies in the Czech Republic. The research presents an overview of the cooperation between the Czech government and NGOs in various forms of emergency management. Using document review and a series of interviews with emergency management experts, several aspects of cooperation were considered: formalization, timing, level, and type. The research findings demonstrate that some emergency management activities can be very effectively performed by NGOs and their volunteers. In the Czech Republic, integration into the national Integrated Rescue System guarantees a minimum standard of performance. Since volunteers work for free and their work has much lower expenses, they perform their activities in a more cost-effective way than the state. However, this is not valid for the whole emergency management system, but only for such activities that can be assigned to volunteers when there are enough willing volunteers and the NGOs and their volunteers are formally integrated into the rescue system. The Czech experience could be interesting for other countries, particularly post-communist countries, because all emergency systems work with information, and the human factor plays a role everywhere. Thus, it is concluded that some basic aspects of cooperation in Czech emergency management, focused on sharing information and strengthening mutual trust and awareness, could be considered as universal.

There are currently two interconnected and conflicting challenges in many countries in the world: emergency and disaster preparedness and the public finance crisis. Volunteers are a valuable and necessary resource for emergency and disaster management. This paper deals with various experiences and emergencies in the Czech Republic in which the nonprofit sector is significantly involved. The aim of the paper is to identify the scope of Czech emergency volunteering and its role in the national Integrated Rescue System (IRS). The Czech IRS is a well-established system based partly on volunteers. The volunteer-to-professional ratio is nearly 12 to 1 for firefighters and about 3.6 to 1 for the mountain rescue service; the water rescue service consists exclusively of volunteers. Moreover, hundreds or thousands of people volunteer during large floods. The scope of volunteer engagement during emergency situations can also be illustrated through estimates of its economic value. The Czech Republic saves public finances for operational expenditures of parties of the IRS, because these costs could be lowered with volunteer participation. It is possible to consider past investments in emergency volunteering as investments in the high-functioning IRS. Analogically, current investments in emergency volunteering can and should be considered as investments in sustaining the current activities of the IRS. The Czech model should be explored more thoroughly; it could be interesting for other countries with problems in emergency and disaster response, especially countries that need to reduce public expenditures.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the current form of cooperation between non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the State in flood risk management in the Czech Republic. The institutional framework developed for the broad cooperation between the State and the nonprofit sector was applied to flood risk management as a means of examining this area. The institutional framework for NGOs-State cooperation in the case of Czech flood risk government has the following elements: the European Union, Central Government, Ministries, Regional Authorities, Municipal Authorities, Emergency Services of Integrated Rescue System, Qua-volunteers, Employment Agencies, and State Companies. The methodology was qualitative and revolved around a literature review and managed interviews with six prominent NGOs participating in Czech flood risk management. Further data was collected from Czech professionals' conferences and during the author's membership in the working group of the Ministry of Interior of the Czech Republic. The conclusion of the paper is as follows: The overview of the cooperation could be helpful for other post-socialistic countries which face a similar situation as did the Czech Republic Moreover, an overview of all forms of NGOs-State cooperation in the case of Czech flood risk management could be helpful for Czech NGOs and the Czech State where cooperation is variable at all levels of governance across the country.

This article deals with the revealed value of volunteering. The revealed value approach is one way to determine the value of non‐market goods or services. Most studies focused on the value of volunteering have built their research on the presumption that there is no way to reveal the value of volunteering, and therefore proxies must be used. This research uses a plausibility probe case study to explore and identify revealed information about the value of volunteering. The research was conducted using data over a seven‐year period (2012–18) from ADRA, a large volunteer centre network in the Czech Republic that has 14 volunteer centres coordinating more than 2,500 volunteers in about 50 cities. I used the data about all the public funding of all the centres in this network between 2012 and 2018 in order to calculate the revealed value of volunteering from the perspective of various governmental institutions. I calculated the total value of volunteering, including financial grants, donations, and the value of volunteer hours. Interestingly, all three values were found within or slightly around the interval estimate of the value of volunteering.

There is a growing body of literature that recognizes the importance of volunteering. The economic impact of volunteering has been studied in previous decades, but scientists have not examined that of international students' volunteer activities fully. Therefore, the current paper aims to identify the economic potential of ingoing Erasmus students volunteering in Visegrad 4 countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia). The study uses a quantitative method to investigate Erasmus students' economic potential for volunteering, which is estimated by using two hypothetical situations. First, 90% of the international students shall volunteer for 4 h per month of their stay. Second, only 10% of the international students shall volunteer for 4 h per month. Replacement median wages were used to quantify the economic value of volunteering. This value is represented by an interval estimate with upper and lower bound. Results indicate the importance of international students' volunteer activity, as the potential volunteer hours and their economic value is calculated.