Religious Social Networks and Volunteering: Examining Recruitment via Close Ties

Abstract

A growing number of studies point to religious social networks as the critical link between religion and volunteering, mediating the effect of religious participation and predicting volunteering more strongly than beliefs. Previous studies have examined how the presence or absence of religiously based social ties predicts volunteering behavior. However, few studies have focused on the role of recruitment in personal networks. Examining the sources and frequency of recruitment efforts is especially important, since being asked to volunteer is one of the strongest predictors of volunteering. Using data from the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study, this study examines the frequency and effectiveness of volunteer recruitment via close, same-faith ties. I find that same-faith friends and family members vary widely in their propensity to make volunteer requests, depending on whether religion is a salient aspect of the relationship and whether the relationship is connected to congregational social networks. I also find that, for churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike, ties to people actively involved in a congregation are important sources of volunteer invitations. As expected, having been asked to volunteer is a strong predictor of volunteering. However, the recruitment source appears to be less critical. I explore how these findings shed light on the mechanisms linking religious networks and volunteering.

Sources of Social Support: Examining Congregational Involvement, Private Devotional Activities, and Congregational Context

“…Respondents who attended worship services more frequently were actually less likely to give a loan or to help someone find a job, while attenders who were more socially embedded in their congregations were more likely to provide loans, care for the sick, and help someone find a job. These findings lend support to the current emphasis in the literature on how religious social networks matter for understanding why religious persons engage in prosocial behavior (Merino ; Putnam and Campbell ; Wilson ). These results suggest that relationships developed in religious congregations matter more than worship service attendance for understanding why attenders of religious congregations provide social support.…”

“…Social embeddedness in one's congregation may associate with providing social support for many reasons. People who are more embedded in their congregations may have more opportunities to learn about needs in the community, may have in their congregation a moral peer group where expectations to help others and to provide social support are strong, and may be recruited more often to help others (Ammerman :367; Beyerlein and Hipp ; Merino ; Putnam and Campbell :477).…”

“…People who attend religious services more frequently are more likely to be asked to volunteer and to volunteer when asked to do so (Paik and Navarre‐Jackson ). People are more likely to recruit friends from their own congregations to volunteer and are more effective in recruiting these friends to help in the community (Merino ).…”

“…People are more likely to receive social support from close friends who share their faith (Merino ). Embeddedness in religious social networks is also predictive of volunteering, giving, and civic engagement (Merino ; Putnam and Campbell ; Wilson :224). Putnam and Campbell () underscore the importance of relationships formed in religious contexts; compared with demographic characteristics, ideology, general social networks, and religiosity, religious social networks are the strongest predictor of a variety of forms of prosocial behavior.…”

A Social Network Analysis of Friendship and Spiritual Support in a Religious Congregation

“…Scholarship on religious relationships also extends outside the congregation, such as research showing that even for secular individuals, having a religious person in their personal social network predicts greater volunteering (Lim & MacGregor, ). Moreover, a few studies have used ego‐network data (e.g., individuals report on their friends, characteristics of their friends, and if their friends are linked; Marsden, ), to show that (a) having ties to someone in a religious congregation predicted receiving invitations to volunteer (Merino, ), (b) reporting more religiously conservative friends in one's personal network weakens the positive association between contact with LGBT people and support for same‐sex marriage (Merino, ), and (c) length of time in a congregation predicts transitive closure between religious and secular friends (i.e., that religious and secular friends also are friends; Schafer & Upenieks, ). These ego‐network studies demonstrate the importance of religion in personal friendship networks; yet, these studies do not locate relationships within a particular religious congregation or allow for the examination of relational social processes within a congregational setting.…”