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PROJECT THIRD WORLD
In layman’s, offering a prize for volunteering increased volunteer responses. In contrast, some volunteers with image concerns responded negatively to the offering of extrinsic incentives and caused a decreasing effect on call responses to volunteer. It should be noted that this study was small and from a narrow sample; mostly males with a limited range of backgrounds. Nevertheless, it does question volunteer motivation. The American College of Healthcare Executives conducted a study that suggested individuals volunteer to facilitate their ability to achieve and retain their high-level position or for recognition and reward. However, the same study further suggested that mid-level executives were more motivated by altruistic reasons more than CEO and senior-level executives. This study also suggests that the reason for lack of volunteering is mostly due to lack of awareness of volunteer opportunities or not being directly asked to volunteer. The Ministry of Human Resources, Canada completed a much more extensive study with 37,426 volunteers ranging from 15 years to above 60. The study found a range of motivating factors:
• 77% believe volunteering is important to helping others • 75% believe volunteering is important for learning new skills • 72% stated that volunteering is important for making contacts useful for employment DEC 2015