Core Theme Motivations of Youth to Choose and Maintain Participation in Indirect Forms of Service
Strengths -Youth are motivated to volunteer in an indirect service capacity for a variety of reasons, including upward mobility, seeking community membership, being passionate about an issue, interest in a service organization, a desire to make change, interest in public education, and sometimes the volunteer opportunity is convenient for them.
Challenges -Despite the many reasons why youth are motivated to volunteer, there are barriers to engagement that prevent them from doing the work that they are motivated to do, including insufficient advertising and an inconvenient location on the part of service organizations. -Some youth are motivated to volunteer only for self-fulfillment and ego-boosting -Some youth are not motivated to volunteer at all, as it is “hard to get youth to take initiative.�
Origins of Leadership Opportunities for Youth Volunteers who Participate in Indirect Forms of Service
-Opportunities for upward mobility help youth grow as leaders within their organizations -Leadership is infused in indirect service volunteering as many youth who choose this type of volunteering either already have strong leadership qualities and skills, have a desire to become leaders or improve their leadership skills, and have staff assuming that leadership is part of their volunteer role. -Public education is integral to awareness raising and fundraising activities and also a highly valued leadership activity by youth volunteers. -Indirect service youth value teamwork as the best form of leadership.
-Some youth feel they struggle to improve their leadership skills because they are overshadowed by other youth volunteers who they see as natural leaders. -Indirect service youth engaged in public education are discouraged by apathy from the public, and lack of feedback from their audiences following an awareness-raising or fundraising event. -Efforts from staff reward leadership by singling out individual youth volunteers detracts attention from the leadership that takes place in teams of youth.
Barriers to Engagement of Youth Volunteers in Indirect Forms of Service
-Youth identified many barriers to engagement but also offered insights into where and how their organizations could be successful at reducing these barriers. Despite some lack of inclusive practices, all volunteers felt their organizations were very diverse and inclusive when it came to race and culture. Volunteers also felt their organizations were successful at reducing power imbalances when they focused on teamwork. Their organizations could prevent youth from becoming discouraged by complex work with unlikely goals by engaging youth in episodic, hands-on opportunities that are fun. Articulating to youth the connection between their service outputs and the impact of these outputs on stakeholders and clients was another way that one organization successfully made indirect service work less complex for their volunteers. Making youth feel part of the action was one way that organizations could assist to connect volunteers with future stakeholders such as other volunteers, clients, and community members. Place-making and branching off to satellite locations were ways in which one organization was successful in resolving issues to do with location and volunteer space.
-Youth identified many barriers to engagement that kept them from volunteering to their fullest potential, including a lack of inclusive practices for younger youth, male youth, and newcomer youth with a limited grasp of the English language. A lack of personal and organizational resources was a barrier restricting volunteer recruitment and participation, along with access to clients and community members, as was competition with other organizations and club chapters. Power imbalances, such as hierarchical structures in the organization lead to volunteers doubting that they had the power to change the issues they were passionate about through volunteering, as did the complexity of the indirect service work. Lack of sufficient location and space restricted volunteers’ access to indirect service opportunities. Prerequisite skills limited the type of youth who could participate in indirect service work. Overall, youth felt that indirect service work was only attractive to and understandable by over-achieving youth.