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INTENTION : |
That volunteer non-profit organisaions committed to human development find people dedicated to the common good and ceaselessly seek out new paths to international cooperation.
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EFFECTIVELY ENGAGING FAITH-BASED VOLUNTEERS: MAXIMIZING BENEFITS FOR BOTH NONPROFITS AND VOLUNTEERS
Volunteers enable nonprofits to stretch their budgets and expand the scope of their services. Many nonprofits simply could not do what they do without volunteers.
Beyond these overarching practical considerations, volunteers from the faith community offer other unique benefits to nonprofits. They promote agency visibility and legitimacy within religious institutions and networks, help reinforce an agency's connection with its historic religious roots, and strengthen the spiritual component of an organisation's mission.
First, faith-based volunteers can promote the visibility and reputation of an agency within their religious institutions or networks. Many volunteers are drawn in by word of mouth, as people invite others they know to serve with them.
Volunteers who are part of a congregation, a religious school, or another form of a religious community can spread awareness and support for the agency through that network.
Because of that, we know people often get involved and volunteer from that church, so that part spreads. It kind of mushrooms, and we have more people involved. They talk more about it at the church level, and more volunteers join the group
The second benefit of faith-based volunteers is that they help to strengthen the agency's ties with sponsoring religious institutions or reinforce its connection with its historic religious roots.
For example, Caroline Centre, a Catholic job-training programme for inner-city women in Baltimore, United States of America, draws student volunteers from Loyola College and has built relationships with alumni associations and local Catholic high schools.
A staff member remarks, "I've got a great network of Convent School Sisters of Notre Dame who jump in when I need something done."
Another ministry started by a Catholic, Our Daily Bread in Cincinnati, has no formal religious affiliation. Yet it relies on the volunteers and food supplied by local Catholic parishes to provide a hot meal to several hundred homeless people daily.
Similarly, in Kuala Lumpur, a group has mushroomed, with many volunteers providing hot meals to homeless and poor people. The group is known as Samaritan Hope.
Another success story comes from a Quaker nursing home, which enjoys a "symbiotic relationship" with a Friends school. According to a staff member, "One of the nicest things about our Friends community is connectivity, that is, the ability for the young people over there to interact with our residents. They come here and volunteer. Our residents go there and volunteer. And that has been a real blessing for both groups."
These examples underscore the research that nonprofits which maintain a connection with a faith community engage greater numbers of volunteers, log more volunteer hours, and report greater levels of benefit from their volunteers (Urban Institute, 2004).
Third, volunteers from the faith community can strengthen the religious component of the organisation's mission. In some Christian contexts, volunteers enhance the religious mission by participating in prayer, talking about their faith, or modelling Christ's example to those they serve.
Finally, engaging volunteers from the faith community may be seen as a way of developing leaders and strengthening the community. This is particularly true in the Parish Integral Human Development groups, where the Church is often the centre of community development and an incubator for preparing leaders for the work of social justice.
Why do people of faith volunteer at nonprofits? Respecting volunteers' faith perspective lays a foundation for a strong working relationship. Faith can influence the motivation of volunteers in many ways. Most prominently, volunteers serve because their faith directs them to care about others and to seek justice.
Volunteering can be an embodied declaration of faithfulness, gratitude to God, and even worship.
Heidi Unruh
Paper presented at NACSW Convention
Durham, NC.
[An edited extract of the Paper]
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