Volunteers in State Government: Involvement, Management, and Benefits

Abstract

Much of what is known about volunteering to public agencies emanates from surveys ofAlthough most volunteers donate their time to nonprofit organizations, a large proportion of all volunteer activity in the United States is directed to the public sector. National surveys of the American populace show that each year more than 23 million people volunteer to a government organization, and research indicates that this number is growing. Much of what is known about volunteering to government emanates from surveys of cities and counties. The International City-County Management Association (ICMA) and the National Association of Counties (NACo) have conducted several surveys Note: This is a revised version of an article presented at the annual meeting of the American Politi-

Participatory Governance through Youth Volunteerism in Public Sector of Pakistan

“…Moreover, to better understand new governance, it is not enough to just focus on the tools, but tool users and tool makers, the humans, including public administrators and the citizens, need to be considered as major stakeholders. Brudney (2000) exhorts that the role of citizens in civic affairs must be explained, elaborated and encouraged in order to make them part of policymaking process. For decades nonprofit organizations have been partners to the state for delivery of public services, like health and social services in different countries, with varying nature of contract terms.…”

“…Brudney (2000) points out that it is important to understand the expected positive role volunteers can play to make a government institution work better. It is also research gap to study the magnitude and scope of volunteer works in the public sector.…”

“…The fact that public managers concerns complain for lack of the funding and staff to utilize volunteers suggests that governmental capacity poses the main challenge for expanded volunteer involvement in local governments. Brudney (2000) argues that while the supply side of volunteer availability and recruitment is emphasized the demand side is too easily ignored-that is, whether public or private agencies have the infrastructure in place to recruit, train, deploy, supervise and retain greater numbers of volunteers. Mutawa & Ali, M. (2012) in their research found that with volunteers in the government service delivery process, government institutions have more capability to utilize their available resources and can have cost saving.…”

“…Volunteerism in public sector reduces the cost of service delivery, leads to expansion of capability by assisting the current employees and encouraging introduction of new programs, contributes to the better service quality with the help of skilled volunteers and creates positive image in the community through extended interaction and communication of volunteers with public. Brudney (2000) argues that in almost all the public sector institutions there are employee unions. Such employee unions have support of employees and they enjoy special protocol and support from the heads of the institutions due to their political influence and employees support.…”

Using Self-Concept Theory to Identify and Develop Volunteer Leader Potential in Healthcare

“…At a more general level, the definition of a volunteer is "an individual who is unpaid and gives freely of his or her time" (see (Brudney & Kellough, 2000;Hartenian, 2007;A. Wilson & Pimm, 1996).…”