Claire Bolge`s Thesis
Transkript
Claire Bolge`s Thesis
The volunteers’ perspective on preferred activities and campaign tools for NGOs By Claire Bolge Supervised by Dr Jennifer Robinson This thesis is submitted in partial completion of the degree of Honours in Media & Communication at RMIT University October 19th, 2012 Declaration This thesis is my own original work, submitted as partial requirement for the degree of Honours in Media & Communication at RMIT University. To the best of my knowledge, this thesis does not contain material previously published by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. The recruitment and retention of volunteers is an ongoing issue for many organisations in the non-government and not-for-profit sector. This is being compounded by the expansion of issue-based groups to disperse geographical locations via the Internet, in particular for global issues without a direct local connection. This study explored the ways in which volunteers prefer to engage in communications and their goals and preferences in relation to the organisation, recruitment, engagement and campaigning. A mixed methods approach of exploratory focus groups (n = 12) and an online survey (n = 79) was used. Following a pretest, which was used to select content, two one-hour focus groups were conducted to explore these volunteer preferences and establish their response to the wider communications of organisations related to global development. The results informed an online survey that was open for 4 weeks and advertised to primarily Australian-based small to medium-sized organisations with a global development focus. The findings speak to the needs of volunteers themselves in responding to communication. This voice of volunteerism seems to crave community beyond that of online, though without undermining the important of online. Frequent volunteers especially seem increasingly less impressed by the social network trend, as they did not select Facebook, Twitter or YouTube as highly important engagement tools. They instead prefer the legitimate professionalism of a website and offline engagement, beyond campaigning and into wider communications also, acknowledging that volunteering is often predominantly a social experience. The results suggest that organisations do not need to manufacture friendships but should highlight the importance of social interaction and accept that ‘modern’ volunteers do expect their engagement to yield benefits more than just an intrinsic ‘duty’ and these benefits should be provided. This thesis would never have happened without the guidance and support of my wonderful supervisor Jenny Robinson. Her wisdom, kindness and amazing ability to move me in the right direction while still letting me figure things out for myself made this paper what it is and I am eternally grateful. Thank-you also to the Honours teaching staff, Adrian Miles, Russell Kerr and Bridget Magner, who helped facilitate a learning environment that was challenging and enlightening but also incredibly fun. This is also extended to the students of the Honours Studio, especially Alex, Erin, Lauren and Liz whom I was lucky enough to have in a Lab with me. Thank-you to everyone who filled out a survey, attended a focus group, answered my incessant emails and passed on my message to their friends and colleagues. Your participation made this research a reality as opposed to just an ambitious dream. Finally, thank-you to my friends and family for their love, support and tolerance of every bad mood and panic-filled phone call. Thanks especially to my Mum and Dad, my boyfriend and mathematical genius Matthias, Lily and Jemma for their edits, advice and endless knowledge banks and my study-partner-in-crime Elizabeth, without whom I wonder if I’d have survived with my sanity. This thesis is in front of you now because of each and every one of you and I will always remember that. With thanks and love, Claire. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Background Representations of global developmental crisis’ and concerns 3 Strong ties versus weak ties volunteer engagement 6 Motivational factors in volunteering 10 Method Focus groups 13 Survey 19 H1 – Long-term volunteers and positive messaging 22 H2 – Online and offline techniques 25 H3 – Community and social motivation 27 H4 – Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation 31 Additional findings 32 Results Discussion The benefits of positive communications and campaigning in discussing global development 33 Online and offline combinations for engagement, recruitment and campaigning 35 The community and social aspects of volunteering 37 Motivations in volunteerism facilitating long-term engagement 39 Limitations & Further Research 40 Conclusion 41 Reference List 44 Appendices - A 51 B 52 C 54 D 56 E 57 F 69 G 60 H 61 I 67 J 70 K 73 L 74 The options for communicating a message nowadays are endless. Publics are inundated with messaging in the form of emails, advertisements, social media, television, radio and print. For organisations looking to have their voices heard, these new and improved channels may be as much a curse as they are a blessing. Cutting through the static seems increasingly difficult and has been a topic of much study and consideration. Non-government organisations (NGOs) and non-profit organisations (NPOs) campaigning on global development issues need to address this challenge just as any other organisation or company, but with the added difficulty of asking consumers not to consume but rather to contribute, not only with their money but, most importantly, with their time. Recruiting and retaining volunteers within this environment is a complicated yet crucial avenue to explore. Waters & Bortree (2012) identified that “there is no doubt that nonprofit organizations rely on their [volunteers’] contribution of time and skills...given their reliance on volunteers, it is not surprising to see a vast amount of literature focused on volunteer recruitment and retention” (p.93-94). Organisations in the non-government and not-for-profit sector need volunteers to function. “Volunteers bring new perspectives and skills to organizations and can foster greater effectiveness and efficiency of NGOs” (UN Volunteers, 2007, par.10). Communications are necessary not only to enlist volunteers but also to retain them in a social environment where long-term engagement seems increasingly rare. For example, even though Australia had almost double the rate of volunteering in 2010 than it did in 1996, with 36 percent of the adult population volunteering (ABS, as cited in Volunteering Australia, 1 2012), the median hours volunteered has decreased from 74 to 56 hours per person (Australian Government, as cited in Volunteering Australia, 2012). The median weekly average of hours volunteered in 2006 was just 1.1 (Volunteering Australia, 2011). Most volunteer hours were also likely devoted at a community level, with sports and physical recreation, education and training, community/welfare and religious groups the most common types of organisations people volunteered for in 2010 (Volunteering Australia, 2011). In America, one-third of all volunteers discontinue their volunteering efforts from year to year and search for new placements when their current placements starts failing to satisfy them (Corporation, as cited in Waters & Bortree, 2012). University debts accumulate, living expenses rise and the job market becomes even more competitive. In this climate, offering one’s time for free or near-free, long-term or with any consistent regularity, especially for a cause with which one does not share any personal connection, is an act that should not be relied upon by the recipients. It instead needs to be recruited and, when received, it should be cherished. In the area of global development, inspiring volunteerism can be even more challenging as there is no ‘magic bullet’ that seems to inspires the level of passion and commitment of volunteers that would make an NGO or NPO truly thrive. But, in studying the past successes and failure of these organisations, and by talking to volunteers who have and have not remained long-term with organisations, there may be suggestions for how to improve volunteering rates and retention within these NGOs and NPOs. This study investigates suggestions relating to enhancing the volunteering 2 experience, which are more complex than leaning on the online movement for recruitment and engagement and require more grassroots community organising, a “collective action of community members drawing on the strength of numbers, participatory processes, and indigenous leadership to decrease power disparities and achieve shared goals for social change” (Staples, as cited in Delgado & Staples, 2008). It further investigates the motivations of potential long-term volunteers, being a unique collection of individuals whom should be understood, catered for and communicated to specifically. Finally, it explores whether the use of negative stereotypical materials, such as the prevalent image of the flycovered emaciated brown child, in the marketing of global development is no longer encouraging for volunteerism. Background Representations of global development crises and concerns The dominant paradigm that plagues NGOs and NPOs campaigning on global development is referred to as the Live Aid Legacy and is representative of the large-scale movement of 1985 which cast the ‘Powerful Giver’ versus ‘Grateful Receiver’ image of charity (Danton & Kirk, 2011). This paradigm is clearly evident in past campaigning communications and NGOs have plainly been perpetrators of what is colloquially referred to in development circles as poverty pornography (Ulbricht & Evans, 2010). The technique of portraying impoverished individuals in developing countries as fly-covered brown children with distended bellies and matchstick-thin arms and legs communicates hopelessness and a situation of disrepair in developing nations (Ulbricht & Evans, 2010). This particular framing “no doubt contributes to the construction of stereotypes of the developing world 3 poor as uneducated, incapable of freeing themselves from poverty, lacking in competence, and miserable” (Clark; Glasgow University Media Group; Opoku-Owusu; Van der Gaag & Nash, as cited in Kennedy & Hill, 2010, par.1). Darnton & Kirk (2011) assert that public perceptions of developing nations have been stuck in this ‘poverty pornography’ frame for at least 25 years. The more NGOs continue to display these stereotypes, the more hopeless the image becomes. For NGOs, this particular research and additional studies should indicate that, while “interest can be triggered by emotional reactions to the topic and discovery of its relevance to something personally meaningful, among other factors” (Hidi; Hidi & Harackiewicz, as cited in Pearce & Larson, 2006, p.3), this short-term interest triggered by situational circumstances will not necessary lead to sustained engagement (Pearce & Larson, 2006, p.123). Though it has been suggested that “facial expression of emotion displayed in pictures on charity advertisements is a critical determinant of sympathy and giving” (Small & Verrochi, 2009, p.777), it is perhaps a consequence of this technique that 80% of the British public still strongly associate the developing world with images of Western aid and tragedy (VSO, 2002). Previous studies on this topic by Kennedy & Hill (2009; 2010) informed the following theory: Mixed stereotypic content (e.g., high warmth [friendly, pro-social behaviour], low competence [struggling, ineducated]) should lead to mixed rebound effects, such as an increase in active helping but also in passive harm [avoidance]. This might be reflected in positive responses to well-publicised calls for aid but disinterest and neglect at other times. If this turns out to be the case the message is clear - the continued use of images of the majority world poor that encourage the construction of 'low competence stereotypes' could undermine efforts to raise genuine, long-lasting awareness and garner support for those living in poverty (2010, Conclusion). Studies show that “individuals who score high on happiness or trait PA report in correlational questionnaire studies a relatively greater interest in helping people (Feingold, 1983), a tendency to act in a prosocial or cooperative manner (e.g., as enjoying sharing or 4 helping others; Rigby & Slee, 1993), and intentions to perform specific altruistic, courteous, or conscientious behaviors at work” (Lyubomirsky et al, 2005, p.837). The fact that these emotions registered highly with participants when viewing positive images thus seems telling about the potential to engage in this sort of behaviour. Furthermore, “negatives states - like anxiety, depression and failure – predict global biases consistent with narrowed attention, whereas positive states – like subjective well-being, optimism, and success – predict global biases consistent with broadened attention (Basso, Schefft, Ris, & Dember; Derryberry & Tucker, as cited in Fredrickson et al, 2002). Thus, as much as positive affect is valuable in this instance, negative affect is potentially dangerous. The responses elicited by long-term participants viewing negative images included hostility, guilt, frustration and fear, all emotions which may potentially contribute to the overarching feeling of hopelessness which seems to dominate discussions of developing nations evident in the study by VSO (2002) and the Frameworks Theory of Darnton & Kirk (2011). Says Dr David Keen of the Development Institute of the London School of Economics, “if the only thing you get is negative stories [related to these issues], you become inured and people seem less human – they are either emaciated victims or violent and evil. This erodes our ability, willingness or interest in helping a place” (Plewes & Stuart, 2007, p.28). Furthermore, certain publics have now expressed anger at being ‘conned’ by the media (VSO, 2002) through these messages, a serious point for organisations to consider given it has been suggested that feelings of “distrust and cynicism result in withdrawal from community affairs” (Norris, as cited in Gil de Zuniga & Valenzuela 2011, p.400) and arguably even more so from affairs with which they have no other, more personal contact. Audiences do seem to have a desire to understand the truth and reality of the situation in developing nations but nevertheless still possess a view that the individuals who exist in this 5 context are helpless victims, dependant on the money and assistance of the Western world (VSO, 2002). The Make Poverty History movement was similarly accused of reinforcing this ‘transactional frame’ of poverty, in which tackling poverty is understood as giving one’s money, rather than time and effort (Darnton & Kirk, 2011). This may be extended to tackling health epidemics, education, displacement and human rights as well. Believing that throwing money at a problem will make it go away does not foster education or understanding and seems not conducive to being inspired as a volunteer beyond this particular monetary action. Based upon this previous research on both the benefits and limitations of representations of global developmental crisis’ and concerns, particularly that of global poverty, it is posited here that great care must be taken when considering the possible financial benefits of using tragic, emotional imagery. While possibly successful short-term, this imagery “does not encourage people to think about the systematic challenges of ending extreme poverty” (Ulbricht & Evans, 2010, par.4) or other international development issues and does not encourage them to combat these challenges. Based on this, it seems likely that people who do actually take action as long-term volunteers would respond better to positive messages that differ from those mentioned, without subscribing to guilt, stereotypes, dehumanisation and, ultimately, hopelessness. Hypothesis 1 (H1) – Long-term volunteers will prefer campaigns and communications with a positive message. Strong ties versus weak ties volunteer engagement According to Tilt et al (2008), "the use of 'advanced technologies' is considered to be a 'powerful strategic enabler' for voluntary organisations" (p. 78). Early online technology, such as the Internet and websites, "played an enormous role in terms of enabling charities 6 and volunteer-based groups to expand their grassroots mobilisation and advocacy efforts" (Greenberg & MacAulay, 2009, p. 1). This platform now includes social media, such as Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube and Facebook, and is prominent in publicity and fundraising. Online participation and activism is easily accessible to the public and can generate huge numbers of interest. The UK 'Make Poverty History' campaign in 2005 received 482,968 electronic communication sign-ups by the end of July of that year and over the course of the year they reported that 730,180 people took 979,098 online actions (Sireau, 2009, p. 125). Online platforms are cost-effective, flexible and overcome geographical constraints without compromising diversity, all inherent advantages for organisations around the globe (Mukherjee 2010). However, online networks are made up of predominantly weak ties, being lots of remote relationships (Darnton & Kirk, 2011, p. 29) as opposed to the strong relationships that come from knowing, relating and respecting someone personally. Gladwell (2000) cites an example of ‘strong ties’ in the civil rights movement of 1960s America – What mattered more was an applicant’s degree of personal connection to the civilrights movement. All the volunteers were required to provide a list of personal contacts—the people they wanted kept apprised of their activities—and participants were far more likely than dropouts to have close friends who were also going to Mississippi [Freedom Summer Project] (p.2) The lack of these strong ties in online campaigning was evident in the KONY2012 campaign. The online response to the movement to make famous and decry Ugandan War Lord Joseph Kony and free his child soldiers was enormous, with over 100 million people viewing the short film about Kony and the child soldiers and 3,590,051 people making pledges (Invisible Children, 2012). But the Cover the Night event, the initial culmination of the campaign, attracted only a handful of supporters in cities around the world (Lowe & Hingston, 2012; Caroll, 2012). The lack of strong, personal ties to the issue and the request 7 by the organisers that enthusiasts take to the street as opposed to the Internet to further spread the word seemingly proved too much to ask. The lack of turnout strongly suggests that social media and online communications do not make a campaign alone. In cases such as this it seems that, “after the action [people] supported is over [they] often chose to move on and don’t feel a need to get permanently engaged” (Van Laer & Van Aelst, 2009, p.247). Of course, this does not imply that successful campaigns cannot be run via the Internet. It is simply important for organisations behind them to consider that these campaigns may not be those that personally connect with volunteers and the public in the long-term and should anticipate, even capitalise on, a high turn over of momentarily engaged participants. Change.org, an online, petition-based campaigning platform uses ‘weak-ties’ as an advantage by offering easy, immediate participant options and therefore generating large numbers by which they can claim support. Online campaigning can compliment offline campaigning and communications as it did in the 2008 Barack Obama Presidential campaign in America, where people could ‘meet’ online, organise events and stay updated and involved, but take their physical campaigning movements offline, with the help of this new, broader network (Abroms & Lefebvre, 2009). This is not a new concept, and offline actions today are almost always accompanied with online tactics (Van Laer & Van Aelst, 2009). This is because there is obvious easy potential in using online environments to broaden and create new networks, thus ideally growing the number of offline supporters of a campaign or action significantly. But it is still suggested by Abroms & Lefebvre (2009) that organisations should be using social media to facilitate and 8 compliment in-person grassroots activities, not replacement them. This online-to-offline system may be applied in reverse, as “people characterized by a high level of participatory capital (memberships and volunteer activities) and community commitment (trust in others) are more likely to use the Internet to maintain existing ties with friends and family” (Penard & Poussing, 2010, par.9). The key in this instance is the maintenance of existing, ‘strong’ ties and access to them in an online environment by friends who know which of their contacts have similar interests to them and will therefore notice the online communication they receive from them, creating a specifically targeted messaging system (Lappaniemi et al, 2010). Abroms & Lefebvre’s analysis of the 2008 Obama campaign also touched on these factors, suggesting that the people who are known and trusted by the target individuals are more influential in shaping their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours (Heaney & Israel, as cited in Abroms & Lefebvre, 2009). Drawing upon this research, it is posited here that recruiting and retaining volunteers requires engagement on a deeper level than that found exclusively online. While online networking remains important to NGOS and NPOs, just as much if not more value and emphasis should be placed on building and utilising offline communities. Hypothesis 2 (H2) – Frequent volunteers will prefer online communications when used in conjunction with effective offline communications, not as the sole driver. 9 Motivational and social factors in volunteering There are multiple aspects of interaction and communications that need to be considered when establishing how and why people do volunteer or may be convinced to volunteer in the future. The Theory of Organisational Inclusion advocates for volunteer coordinators to endeavour to understand the varying motivations of the volunteers they engage with so that they can communicate with them better and devise stronger plans for retention (McCune, as cited in Waters & Bortree, 2012). And research has further shown that “one of the most successful methods in ensuring that volunteers continue working with organizations involves making them feel included throughout an organization” (Cuskelly et al, as cited in Waters & Bortree, 2012). This may be particularly true for young people, as this is a generation that has been marginalised within their communities in the past (Garbarino, as cited in Otis, 2006). Community organising as a distinct practice was observed as far back at the 1960s (Delgado & Staples, 2008). And while older individuals have consistently been identified as the most likely age group to participate in volunteering (Hackl, Halla, Pruckner, 2010; Beigbeder, 1991), the aging volunteer population indicates it is important not to rely on the older generation alone to maintain volunteer momentum (Wynne, 2011). Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that young people are encouraged to volunteer when they are exposed to other volunteers, such as these veteran volunteers, within their immediate social and familial groups (Wynne, 2011; Passy & Giugni, as cited in Thackeray & Hunter, 2010). Volunteering or civic behaviour undertaken in adolescence is more likely to continue into 10 adulthood (Otis, 2006; Shannon; Metz; McLellan & Youniss, as cited in Wynne, 2011) and engaged youth are also less likely to engage in risky behaviours and more likely to be academically successful (Otis, 2006). The benefits of encouraging young people to volunteer through utilising proven connections seem obvious, as it is establishing a ‘domino effect’ of volunteering as a culture encouraged by adults and embraced by youth and offering community to both. It is also important in the study of volunteerism to consider psychological motivations for volunteering. When volunteering, people “seek out an opportunity to help another…and the decision to help or continue volunteering is influenced by whether the activity satisfies their needs and goals” (Powers, 2007, p.1). Not only does an individual need to feel an initial motivation to volunteer based on social values, general altruistic personalities or the quest for internal self-satisfaction, they also need to feel satisfied that the undertaken activity then fulfils the criteria that led them to volunteer in the first place (Powers, 2007). If these criteria are met, the potential for long-term volunteerism seems significantly heightened. Intrinsic motivation occurs when we are internally motivated to do something for reasons of pleasure, importance or personal growth. Intrinsic motivation may be harnessed to fulfill this criterion of volunteering and encourage people to volunteer for a good cause by highlighting the self-gratification that can be achieved through volunteerism. Intrinsic motivation is a driver, the energy for the activity, and for development internally, (Deci and Ryan, 1985) that influences behaviour in an individual. When intrinsically motivated, people 11 follow their interests and let curiosity, excitement and egos drive their choices and actions and their behaviours “are aimed at establishing certain internal conditions that are rewarding for the organism” (Deci and Ryan, 1985, p.25). It may even be triggered by a state of cognitive dissonance, something unhappy occurring which they desire to change, such as the youth-group that organised anti-violence vigils and rallies following the drive-by shooting death of a 16-year-old girl from their city (Christens & Dolan, 2011). The contrast to intrinsic motivation is extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is based on the premise of acting for an incentive and stems from external factors such as money, rewards, academic grades, even obligations or the search for approval (Coon & Mitterer, 2008). Rewarding a person extrinsically to encourage them to volunteer is easier for organisations. Even when individuals are interested in volunteering generally, it is still important to direct the attention of these persons and provide incentives for their involvement in an activity (Steen, 2006). This is arguably even more so the case when considering NGOs campaigning on intangible issues with which these publics have little to no direct exposure to, such as poverty, slavery or child exploitation. However, it has been suggested that these external rewards will produce only shortterm results as they offer only short-term enticements. Musick and Wilson (2008) studied search-and-rescue squads, discovering that those who joined for thrill seeking, glory seeking, a desire to amass outdoor and survival skills and discount benefits inevitably quit (Musick and Wilson, 2008). This example of “low engagement is to be expected when people are doing an activity for extrinsic reasons” (Deci & Ryan; Lepper et al, as cited in Pearce & 12 Larson, 2006, p126). While these ‘wrong reasons’ may be helpful initially, this study will investigate individuals who are intrinsically motivated to volunteer by factors such as wanting to feel good and do good for society and consider whether they are more likely to feel a long-term connection to a cause than those who act initially for external reward only. It is further hypothesised that individuals who volunteer frequently will highly value the social and community aspects that accompany volunteerism more so than their infrequent volunteering counterparts. Hypothesis 3 (H3) – Frequent volunteers will place greater value on community and socially focused tactics and goals Hypothesis 4 (H4) – Long-term volunteers are motivated by intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic factors. Method This research study produced original data through a pretest, exploratory focus groups and an online survey using a convenience snowball sampling method. Focus Groups Focus groups “offer unique insights into the possibilities of or for critical inquiry as a deliberative, dialogic, and democratic practice that is always already engaged in and with real-world problems and asymmetries in the distribution of economic and social capital” (Bourdieu & Wacquant, as cited in Kamberelis & Dimitriadis, 2005, p.887). It is also 13 suggested that people are able to better explore and explain their views through the process of group activities than they are in a one-on-one interview with a researcher (Kitzinger, 1995). Focus groups were originally used in communication studies to explore effects of the visually based stimuli of film and television (Kitzinger, 1995) so the extension of this practice to still imagery and short commercial clips seemed logical. Thus they were chosen for use in this research study. Following pretest sessions, two focus groups were hosted to give the researcher the chance to talk to volunteers themselves and let these volunteers have their say on what tools, tactics, goals and communications they value within their volunteering experience. Each group contained 5-7 people and lasted approximately one hour, fitting with the suggested group size and running time identified by Kitzinger (1995). Groups were designed to yield qualitative data and thus these smaller numbers allowed for more personal, in-depth discussions. The researcher established a focus group protocol drawing on insights taken from Kitzinger’s Qualitative Research: Introducing focus groups (1995) (see Appendix C). This specific structure was decided upon after 2 pretest focus group sessions were conducted and the results of each analysed. The findings of these groups were not included in the final paper. Pretests. Pretest Session 1 (n=7) was composed of available classmates and acquaintances of the researcher. Participants were presented with different visual stimuli and questions than those presented in the final groups. The outline was changed in response to participant feedback and the researcher’s observations during this pretest. They also completed the small group ranking activity with fewer options to choose from, which led to an increased number of tool options in subsequent sessions. Pretest Session 2 (n=3) participants, made up 14 of personal contacts of the researcher with experience in volunteering, were presented with 28 images. Standardised presentation time of 6 seconds was added to give equal exposure to all images. The time of 6 seconds was chosen as it is the validated exposure rate standard for the Motivation Activation Measure which measures emotional response to standardised images (Lang, Shine & Lee, 2005; Lang et al, 2011). A validated scale was also selected to measure the affective response to each image. Although many were examined, the PANAS (Positive And Negative Affective Scale; Watson et al, 1988) was used. This is composed of 20 emotion words on a 1-5 Likert scaled (1 = very little to not at all, 5= extremely). The positive words on this scaled are: Interested, Excited, Strong, Enthusiastic, Proud, Alert, Inspired, Determined, Attentive, Active. The negative words on this scale are: Distressed, Upset, Guilty, Scared, Hostile, Irritable, Ashamed, Nervous, Jittery, Afraid. From these 28 pictures, 12 were chosen for use in the official focus groups due to the stronger responses they elicited from Pretest Session 2 participants. Pretest Session 2 participants also completed the small group activity and the researcher altered the selection criteria in the small group ranking activity based on observations of this practice. Participant were instructed to rank campaigning tools as an entire list originally, however, after the researcher observed this in practice, it was changed to selecting and ranking a top 3 and an alternative 3 tools. Focus Group Participants. All participants except 1 were identified as long-term volunteers of 6 months or more, while 67% (n=12) participants had volunteered for 2 or more years. The overall group was made up of 9 females and 3 males aged between 18 and 55 years. The screener survey ensured that no participant under the age of 18 was admitted into the study, in compliance with the researcher’s ethics approval. 75% (n=12) participants were aged 1825, 17% (n=12) were aged 26-35 and 8% (n=12) was aged 36-55. 15 Focus group participants were recruited from NGOs and NPOs that were locally based or with a local chapter. These were typically grassroots organisations campaigning on or committed to global development issues. These are generally intangible issues which cannot necessary be seen or personally engaged with in daily life, such as international poverty, refugee rights or slavery. The research focused on smaller organisations initially, though some larger and more established organisations were also given the opportunity to participate if they expressed interest given the limited numbers of volunteers available when targeting smaller or grassroots organisations exclusively. Organisations campaigning on other intangible issues such as climate change and animal welfare were also contacted. Organisations were randomly ordered from a list then compiled by the researcher and contacted in this order via email (see Appendix A), follow-up email (see Appendix B), phone call or through utilising personal contacts where necessary. Organisations were asked to contact their volunteers to establish interest in participating. Individuals who responded to the call for volunteers were then screened using a short, self-evaluation form (see Appendix E) which established their gender, age, background (exposure to volunteering etc) and main motivations as a volunteer. These questions were in part derived from Wynne’s study for the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (2011). During the small group activities run within the focus groups, participants were divided into groups of infrequent volunteers (those volunteering a few time per year or less) and frequent volunteers (those volunteering 2-3 times a month or more). This was to ensure that infrequent volunteers who have less expertise and exposure were not intimidated into suppressing their views while working with highly engaged and experienced volunteers. It also produced data that allowed for the comparison of frequent volunteers with infrequent volunteers. Participants were offered a $10 Coles Myer gift voucher as compensation for their 16 time. They were also provided with refreshments during the focus groups, as suggested by Kitzinger (1995) to help facilitate a comfortable environment. Focus group protocol. The focus groups consisted of four short, pre-designed components. Firstly, participants answered demographic questions (see Appendix D) similar to those presented in the screener survey (see Appendix E): name, age, time spent volunteering (hours per week), length of volunteer engagement (years and/or months), personal exposure to volunteering and main reason for volunteering. Also included were the open-ended questions: ‘What do you like most about volunteering?’ ‘What do you like least about volunteering?’ and ‘Do you receive any financial benefits, incentives or support (however minimal) for your volunteering?’ (Basic motivational and contextual questions were modified from those in Wynne’s 2011 study for the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria). This activity was followed by the presentation of the 12 selected images and 4 video clips chosen from the pretest because of their potential to evoke certain emotions. According to a study by Dillard & Peck (2000), which considered graduates’ emotional responses to public service announcements, data shows that “emotional responses figure quite prominently in judgments of perceived message effectiveness, which then shape attitudes toward the issue” (p.482). In this activity, participants were asked to view an image for 6 seconds or watch a video clip for the duration and then note how they felt using the PANAS scale (see Appendix F). This component of the focus groups was designed to record the emotional responses of people towards these particular images and establish whether negative images (children crying, people in impoverished situations, women suffering sicknesses) evoke negative emotions and whether positive images (smiling faces, healthy crops, happy families) evoke positive emotions. 17 Table 1. Description of Focus Group images. Image 1 Image 2 Image 3 Image 4 Image 5 Image 6 Image 7 Image 8 Image 9 Image 10 Image 11 Image 12 Video clip 1 Video clip 2 Video clip 3 Video clip 4 Mother sitting on the city street with a child sleeping in her lap, holding out a cup begging for money Child smiling as he fills his hands with clean water running from a tap Two children sitting in a dirty, shallow creek, holding rubbish in their hand A group of young women wearing uniforms sit in a classroom An older man stands amidst a healthy green corn crop An older man sits in a rubbish heap wearing little clothing and no shoes, finding food scraps to eat A young girl smiles at the camera, her healthy face filling the screen A group of girls laugh and play ball sports outside together A group of severely emaciated children reach out their hands A young girl with a tear running down her face looks sadly into the camera A tired mother holds a infant who has a feeding tube tapped to an emaciated face A dishevelled young woman looks to the camera from behind lines of barbed wire fencing A celebrity ambassador makes an impassioned plea for the public to donate to save a child from hunger A group of families are light-heartedly failed for their spending choices, while the final family is applauded for using spare money per month to sponsor a child A inspirational music track builds behind images and captions of poor yet powerful women shaping developing communities A series of celebrities click their fingers to represent the preventable death of a child from poverty every two seconds The researcher next initiated a short discussion amongst participants during which they identified their own view of volunteers and volunteering, with prompts such as ‘can volunteers receive any financial benefits?’ and ‘is there a stereotypical view of volunteers?’ offered by the researcher where necessary (see Appendix I & Appendix J). This was designed as an icebreaker and precursor to the concluding activity. Finally, the groups finished with an interactive activity component in which smaller groups of 2-3 participants grouped according to their level of engagement frequency (see Participants section) were formed. Each group was given a set of cards representing organisational goals, volunteer recruitment tools, volunteer engagement tools and 18 campaigning tools (see Appendix H). The groups were directed to choose, with their team members, which of each they would prioritise in their own efforts as a grassroots NGO launching a campaign. When considering campaigning tools they were asked to select 3 top choices and 3 additional choices while in other categories they were asked to order the options presented from most to least important. The list of tools was devised by studying those used successfully in past campaigns, such as Live Aid (a public concert) and KONY2012 (a YouTube video) or by organisations such as Make Poverty History (merchandise and celebrity endorsements). Survey An online survey as an additional component in this research study was designed to build upon the qualitative information gathered during focus groups by applying it in a wider, more accessible format. The activities undertaken and information gathered during focus groups informed this survey. A survey was a positive addition to this study given interested parties who were, for timing, geographical or personal reasons, unable to make the face-to-face focus group sessions. Online surveys are a quick and inexpensive way to distribute surveys to large populations of potential participants (Wright, 2005; Rubin & Babbie, 2009) and thus this method was chosen. The survey was designed to run for 15 minutes or less, keeping with recommendations (Rubin & Babbie, 2009). The survey included 3 component derived from focus group activities. 19 Survey Participants. Participants were recruited from organisations identified in the lead-up to focus groups as well as additional organisations meeting the same criteria, and included individuals who had already expressed interest as well as new contacts. Focus groups participants were asked to identify friends and colleagues who may be interested and forward the survey onto them, though they were not asked to complete it themselves. The researcher also posted the survey on social media platforms to further widen the audience. Organisations not contacted for focus group recruitment due to geographical constraints but otherwise meeting the initial selection criteria were also contacted at this stage. The criterion was also broadened to include NGOs and NPOs focused on local or national issues of social justice, health and the community. Organisations received a short email (see Appendix G) and individuals with prior knowledge of the survey or study were contacted individually. This initial contact contained the relevant link to the survey and, as no follow-up was needed, no further correspondence was deemed necessary. A total of 79 participants completed the survey. Participants identified themselves as volunteers and as being aged between 18 and over 56. 36% participants were aged 18-25, 20% were aged 26-35, 22.7% were aged 36-55 and 21.3% were aged over 55. 36% of participants were from organizations with a global focus while 64% of participants responded as being from an organisation with a more local focus. Participants were asked upon completion if they would be interested in partaking in a 20 follow-up focus group. If they indicated yes they were asked to provide a contact email. An email address was also necessary if participants indicated they would like to go into the draw to win a $100 Coles Myer gift voucher incentive. Survey content (see Appendix L). Participants were first presented with 6 images chosen from the 12 shown to focus group participants. Images 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 and 11 became Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 in surveys. Only 6 of 12 images were used due to time constraints, and these particular images were chosen because of the high ratings they received in focus groups. Participants were again asked to view an image and then note how they felt by responding to a series of emotions as listed on the PANAS scale. Participants then completed ranking questions derived from the small group ranking activity run in focus groups. The same 4 categories were used, covering organisational goals, volunteer recruitment tools, volunteer engagement tools and campaigning tools. Participants were instructed to rank from 1-3 the most important tools/goals from the lists of organisational goals, volunteer engagement tools and volunteer recruitment tools, and from 1-5 the most important tools from the list of campaigning tools. The researcher identified this as an appropriately time-conscious way to undertake the activity and achieve equivalent ranking of the options. 21 Results Hypothesis 1 (H1) – Long-term volunteers will prefer campaigns and communications with a positive message. The image analysis activity completed by focus group and survey participants supported the hypothesis that long-term volunteers would respond better to positive as opposed to negative communications. Firstly, the validity of the images used was confirmed for this sample as images and clips defined as positive rated significantly higher for positive affect words, such as enthusiastic and inspired. Likewise, negative images elicited stronger response to negative affect words, such as irritated and upset. Paired-sample t-tests were used to compare the mean positive to the mean negative affect sub-scale, and were significant for all images (see Table 2). The larger the difference, the higher the image rated on either the positive or negative scale (indicated by the plus and minus symbols). For example, Image 2 as seen by focus group participants (See Appendix K) had a very high overall score for positive affect words (31.36) and a low overall score for negative affect words (11.45) so it ultimately rated highly with a positive mean difference of +1.99. Meanwhile, the one clip rated as being ‘neutral’, which was dropped after the focus groups, was slightly negative at -0.14. The majority of the high-scoring affect words for each positive image were positive, while the same is true of negative images and negative affect words. Affect words based around engagement with the image all scored higher for positive images and were identified as positive. Positive images also appear to have elicited higher degrees of positive affect than negative images do negative affect (see Table 2). Positive means generated by positive images are generally larger than negative means generated by negative images, with the 22 highest positive in focus group results a mean of 3.35 while the highest negative was only a mean of 2.99. The same was evident in survey data with the highest positive for long-term survey participants being 2.66 and the highest negative being 2.2. All were rated using the same 5-point scale. While the focus group and survey data both evidenced the same trends in terms of positive and negative affect and degrees of emotional response, participants in focus groups showed more extreme responses to the images than survey participants, with the highest and lowest differences (for images only) being +1.99 for focus groups versus +1.55 for survey participants and -0.93 for focus groups versus -0.55 for survey participants. Survey data, however, demonstrates that these results are not limited to long-term volunteers (see Table 2). An analysis of the responses of short-term participants showed that negative images also trigger strong negative affect and likewise positive images and positive affect. In fact, differences were actually larger for short-term survey participants as opposed to long-term survey participants. For the three negative images, short-term volunteers had significantly higher ratings for the negative affect words than when the same images were rated by long-term volunteers. These images were Image 2 (t73=-2.082, p=0.041), Image 5 (t73=-2.889, p=0.005) and Image 6(t73=-2.706, p=0.008). . 23 Table 2. PANAS positive and negative ratings for issue images. Image Child drinking clean water Long-term Short-term Focus Group Children sit in garbage Long-term Short-term Focus Group Women in school Long-term Short-term Focus Group Girls playing sport Long-term Short-term Focus Group Starving children PANAS Affect Sub-scale Total Rating Mean Rating Mean Positive Negative Positive Negativ Difference e 2.54 1.26 t74=11.72* ** 24.63 28.31 31.36 12.12 14.50 11.45 20.68 24.13 21.73 2.46 1.21 2.83 1.45 3.14 1.15 2.14 2.39 22.69 2.07 2.27* 28.19 2.41 2.82* 25.18 2.17 2.52 26.53 28.88 27.73 2.70 1.23 11.90 2.65 1.19 13.94 2.89 1.39 11.27 2.77 1.13 26.59 31.06 31.64 2.75 1.15 11.10 2.66 1.11 12.81 3.11 1.28 10.55 3.16 1.05 2.12 1.25 1.38 1.99 t74=-2.44** -0.20 -0.41 -0.35 t74=12.14* ** 1.46 1.49 1.65 t74=13.16* ** 1.55 1.83 2.11 t74=5.84*** 2.78 Long-term 2.61** 20.59 26.10 2.06 * -0.55 Short-term 3.43** 23.50 34.25 2.35 * -1.08 Focus Group 20.64 29.91 2.06 2.99 -0.93 Sick mum & baby 2.01 2.43 t74=4.07*** Long-term 19.81 22.64 1.98 2.26** -0.28 Short-term 21.13 30.38 2.11 3.04** -0.93 Focus Group 20.08 26.08 2.01 2.61 -0.60 Note 1: Paired t-tests were conducted between positive and negative affect ratings across all participants for each image. All were significant (t-values reported). Note 2: Significant differences between long-term and short-term volunteers for the negative affect sub-scale are indicated as follows: * p < .05, ** p<.01, ***p<.005 on an independent t-test with 73 degrees of freedom. There were no significant differences in positive affect ratings. An interest in positive communications and campaigning choices was also evident in the tools selected by long-term survey participants in the ranking activity (see Table 2). ‘A survivor’s story’ outranked ‘a victim’s story’, being chosen as a campaigning tool 39 times 24 as opposed to 20 times while ‘positive statistics’ outranked ‘negatives statistics’, 25 to 4. Hypothesis 2 (H2) – Frequent volunteers will prefer online communications when used in conjunction with effective offline communications, not as the sole driver. The results gathered during the ranking activity completed by focus groups (see Appendix H) and survey participants demonstrated the following results in regards to the combination of online versus offline materials they prefer. Table 3. Number of times a particular campaign tool was selected in respondents’ top 5 or 6 choices. Campaigning tool A survivor’s story Television Website An event e.g. the 40-hour famine Positive statistics A victim’s story Facebook YouTube video Public concerts Celebrity endorsements Radio Humour An event e.g. a gala dinner Merchandise: t-shirts and wristbands Rally Negative statistics Blogging Petitions Cold calling Twitter Frequent Volunteers Focus Survey Group 39 3 36 2 35 4 Infrequent Volunteers Focus Survey Group 6 0 9 0 7 1 7 1 34 25 20 19 17 14 12 12 7 7 4 2 0 4 1 0 1 0 1 0 4 5 8 3 1 5 2 1 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 6 5 4 3 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 2 3 3 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 In selecting campaigning tools (see Table 3), online options were popular choices for focus group participants, with ‘a website’ and a ‘Facebook page’ chosen by all participants. 25 ‘A campaign e.g. the 40-Hour Famine’, a high-profile movement with large offline components, was chosen by all of the participants also. ‘Television’ was chosen by only 2 of the frequent groups despite its popularity with survey participants. There was a mixture of offline and online choices making up the remainder of the selections. For survey participants, ‘a website’, ‘an event e.g. the 40-Hour Famine’, ‘television’ and ‘a survivor story’ rated highest for frequent volunteers, again combining online and offline mediums. ‘Television’, ‘a website’, ‘an event e.g. the 40-Hour Famine’ and ‘Facebook’ rated highest for infrequent volunteers, however ‘Facebook’ failed to rate higher than seventh for frequent survey participants. In selecting volunteer engagement tools (see Table 4), a division between the online and offline preferences of frequent and infrequent participants in the focus groups was more prevalent. All of the frequent participants choose offline or interpersonal tools, such as ‘team-building exercises’, ‘group camps’ and ‘regular meetings’ for at least 2 of their top 3 engagement tools. Infrequent participants instead choose ‘Facebook groups’, ‘group emails’ and ‘conference calls’ as their top three. In surveys, results showed less difference between the preferences of frequent and infrequent participants. The highest rated tools for both frequent and infrequent participants were for offline engagement tools, being ‘regular meetings’ (frequent x=1.73, infrequent x=1.87) and ‘team-building exercises’ (frequent x=1.17 and infrequent x=1.27). ‘Conference calls’ and ‘Facebook groups’ rated lowest for frequent participants while ‘conference calls’, ‘task-based incentives and rewards’ and ‘Facebook groups’ rated lowest for infrequent participants. 26 Table 4. Volunteer engagement tools. Rankings (8 items) 1st choice 2nd choice 3rd choice Regular Meetings Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Group emails Frequent (n=60 ) Infrequent (n=15) Team-building exercises Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Task-based rewards & incentives Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Group camps & retreats Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Regular social nights Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Facebook groups Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Conference calls Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Mean Rank 23 6 13 3 9 4 1.73 1.87 11 1 11 2 8 1 1.05 0.53 10 4 13 3 14 1 1.17 1.27 8 1 4 0 8 1 0.67 0.27 4 0 4 2 7 3 0.45 0.47 4 3 8 3 9 2 0.62 1.13 0 0 3 1 3 2 0.15 0.27 0 0 4 1 2 1 0.17 0.20 Hypothesis 3 (H3) – Frequent volunteers will place greater value on community and socially focused tactics and goals The demographic questions completed by focus group (see Appendix D) and survey participants (see Appendix K) revealed that 80% (n=10) of the frequent volunteers who participated in the focus groups identified as having family members involved in volunteering compared to only 47% (n=60) of frequent volunteers who completed the survey. 27 Similarly, for people who volunteer frequently, all of those in the focus groups (n=10) identified as having friends involved in volunteering compared to 72% (n=60) who completed the survey. Table 5. Volunteer recruitment tools. Rankings (7 items) 1 choice 2nd 3rd choice choice st Word of mouth Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Advertising – Facebook, Twitter & social sites Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Recruitment drives at schools & universities Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Recruitment drives for family and friends Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Offering extra class credit opportunities for student Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Advertising – newspaper, radio & job sites Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Offering prizes, giveaways & incentives Frequent (n=60) Infrequent (n=15) Mean Rank 22 4 8 2 6 2 1.47 1.20 13 4 7 1 13 5 1.1 1.27 9 4 21 0 8 5 1.28 1.13 2 0 4 3 9 0 0.38 0.40 4 2 9 3 10 2 0.68 0.93 9 1 11 5 12 1 1.02 0.93 1 0 0 1 2 0 0.08 0.13 The ranking activity also produced results regarding the preferences of frequent volunteers versus infrequent volunteers in regards to community and socially focused tactics and goals. When choosing from the volunteer recruitment tools (see Table 5), ‘word of 28 mouth’ was consistently identified as an important tool, with all small groups placing it in their top three recruitment tools and 74% (n=4 groups) of frequent participants choosing it as their most important recruitment tool. The frequent survey respondents also rated ‘word of mouth’ the highest (mean=1.47). ‘Word of mouth’ also rated well with infrequent volunteers, second only to ‘advertising – Facebook, Twitter & social sites’. ‘Prizes, giveaways and incentives’ was rated in the bottom three for all focus group respondents, coming last for 50% (n=4 groups) of frequent participants and all infrequent participants (n=1 group). It also rated worst for both frequent and infrequent volunteers in surveys. There was a clear difference between the organisational goal preferences of frequent and infrequent volunteers (see Table 6). All frequent volunteers identified ‘leadership’ in their top 3 goals with 75% (n=4 groups) rating it most important and one volunteer declaring, “leadership will set the vision for all the other priorities” (female, frequent). The infrequent participants rated it only forth of 6 goals, instead rating ‘publicity’ as their most important goal. This contrasts with the frequent participants, who rated publicity in the bottom 3. 29 Table 6. Organisation goals. Community & Public Organisational goals friendships Funding perception To individuals Frequent 41 7 Infrequent 11 2 To fellow volunteers Frequent 46 6 Infrequent 10 0 To the wider organisation Frequent 11 19 Infrequent 3 2 Leadership Publicity Awards 6 1 10 0 1 2 0 1 1 1 6 3 0 1 0 1 17 9 10 0 3 1 3 1 The preferences of ‘you’ (n=55 out of 79) & ‘fellow volunteers’ (n=60 out of 79) was significantly skewed towards "community & friendships" (p<.000). However, when comparing ‘you’ to ‘the organisation’, the spread was more diverse across all option combinations, which is supported by a non-significant chi-square test (X2 =14.663, p =.549). Results were quite different in surveys, with frequent and infrequent participants both rating ‘community and friendship’ as their most important goal, with 73% (n=15) of infrequent volunteers and 68% (n=60) of frequent volunteers selecting it. ‘Awards’ received no votes from either group of volunteers, as in focus groups, while ‘leadership’, ‘funding’ and ‘public perception’ rated considerably higher for frequent as opposed to infrequent participants. Finally, when choosing from volunteer engagement tactics (see Table 4), all of the frequent focus group participants chose offline or interpersonal tools which were significantly more social and community-minded, such as ‘team-building exercises’, ‘group camps’ and ‘regular meetings’ for at least 2 of their top 3 engagement tools. Infrequent participants 30 instead chose ‘Facebook groups’, ‘group emails’ and ‘conference calls’ as their top three, options which involve little to no personal interaction. In surveys, results showed less difference between the preferences of frequent and infrequent participants. The highest means for each group of participants were for offline engagement tools, being ‘team-building exercises’ and ‘regular meetings’. For frequent participants, ‘Facebook groups’ rated lowest with a mean of 0.15 and for infrequent participants ‘conference calls’ rated lowest with a mean of 0.20. Hypothesis 4 (H4) – Long-term volunteers are motivated by intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic factors. This hypothesis was supported in this study based on responses about the motivations and social lives of long-term volunteers. 83% (n=12) of focus group participants and 100% (n=11) of long-term focus group participants selected a purely altruistic motivation (‘I want to do something to help others’, ‘social responsibility’, ‘it’s the right thing to do’) as their main reason for volunteering. 75% (n=75) of survey participants and 78% (n=59) of longterm survey participants also selected a purely altruistic motivation as their main reason for volunteering. 100% (n=11) of long-term focus group participants had been exposed to volunteering through at least one of the following: parents, friends, extended family, siblings, spouse/partner, school community, church/community group. 93% (n=59) of longterm survey participants had been exposed to volunteering through at least one of the following: parents, friends, extended family, siblings, spouse/partner, school community, church/community group, workplace. The ranking activity completed by focus groups and survey participants also produced results relating to motivation. When choosing volunteer recruitment tools (see 31 Table 5), ‘offering giveaways, prizes and incentives’, an extrinsic motivational tool, was identified as the least important tool for 60% (n=5 groups) of the participants in focus groups and in the bottom three for all of the participants. In surveys, ‘offering prizes, giveaways and incentives’ had the lowest mean for all participants. In selecting organisational goals, all volunteers rated ‘awards’, again extrinsic, as the least important organisational goal. This was also true for survey participants, with no participants selecting it as their most important goal. Additional findings Volunteering to build a resume and gain industry experience was deemed acceptable by the participants in focus groups, as was receiving some financial remuneration, but there was a general level of disdain expressed in regards to the giving of prizes and incentives for volunteering. It was stated that this might attract “some of the wrong people” (female, frequent), people who “aren’t there for the cause” (male, frequent) and it was stated that receiving incentives, prizes and rewards is “not really the point” (female, frequent) of volunteering. Comments made by the participants themselves also indicated a belief that volunteering “is not just a selfless act” (male, infrequent). One frequent participant commented that she still expects a level of support and peer engagement as a volunteer while another frequent volunteers acknowledged that the organisation she works for treats their volunteers quite poorly, perhaps because they are classified as unskilled and unpaid. Another participants responded that he had left an organisation because of these same reasons, stating “you want to know that you’re doing something that’s meaningful and benefit to, like, that ideological thing you’re pursing” (male, infrequent). This is supported by the research of 32 Powers (2007) who remarked upon the need for volunteering to meet the criteria established by an individual at the time of volunteering. This may be as simple as volunteers feeling as though their time is going towards the accomplishment of something, but it should be remembered that managers “must not view volunteers as monolithic groups, but they have to focus on the individual by investing time to understanding who they are and their specific motivations” (Waters & Bortree, 2012, 103). Discussion The benefits of positive communications and campaigning in discussing global development The responses of long-term participants to positive imagery as opposed to negative imagery is significant here, with results indicating that people have a stronger positive emotional response to images which depict positive situations and scenarios. Feelings of determination, enthusiasm, interest and strength, to name a few, are obviously desirable in this instance, given the association between feeling happy and pro-social behaviour (Lyubomirsky et al, 2005). This study indicates that volunteers themselves understand and appreciate the use of positive imagery. The fact that long-term survey participants consistently chose positive tools, being ‘positive statistics’ and ‘a survivor’s story’, over negative tools, being ‘negative statistics’ and ‘a victim’s story’, indicates not only their personal preference for positive messaging but also their belief in the appeal of this messaging to the public, given that they were directed to choose tools for the specific purpose of recruiting and engaging with volunteers. Said one volunteer, “Having a hero and a positive narrative really helps” (female, frequent). The fact that this information comes from the specific target demographic, being 33 long-term volunteers themselves, makes it significant. Another important factor to note is the fact that not only did long-term volunteers have a positive emotional response towards positive imagery, results show they also felt stronger positivity towards these images than they did negatively towards negative images. This potentially suggests that people, especially people already engaged in volunteering, have become desensitised to negative imagery, given the lengthy exposure publics have had to it. This further undermines any potential value negative imagery may have. Significantly, it is only long-term volunteers who responded in this manner; short-term volunteers who have presumably had less exposure to images still respond strongly in the negative towards this negative imagery. This may be a reason why certain studies position acts of giving next to the shock value of this imagery (Small & Verrochi 2009), which creates immediate outrage but, as seen with long-term volunteers, gradually proceeds to have little impact at all. This is supported by the following suggestion: Appeals based on financial transactions or disempowering images of human suffering (both of which tap into extrinsic motivations and negative frames) may prove impossible to give up in the short term. But their negative impacts could be somewhat limited if they were used only to pull in new supporters – supporters who could then be offered only engagement activities based on more positive values and frames (Darnton & Kirk 2011, p.105). These results also suggest that positive imagery, which still elicited a high-level response from frequent participants in this survey, may be a way to overcome the stereotypes that are associated with negative imagery and have thus produced this desensitisation. Breaking the ‘framework’ surrounding poverty as discussed by Darnton & Kirk (2011) means disassociating new campaigns and movements from old, outdated campaigns and movements and thus preventing publics from forming a mentality of hopelessness as “nothing has really changed” (Darnton & Kirk 2011 p.24). Ultimately, it is not just long-term volunteers who respond positively to positive images – it’s short-term volunteers as well. Though they may, as discussed, still react more 34 intensely to negative imagery than their long-term counterparts, short-term volunteers also recorded high degrees of positive affect when viewing positive images. Based on this there seems to be multiple potential benefits of replacing negative imagery with positive imagery in campaigning efforts generally and recruiting specifically. It recommended here that NGOs and NPOs, particularly those interested in volunteer recruitment and retaining, strongly consider phasing out the use of negative images in favour of positive images that demonstrate the good work that has been and continues to be done in situations of development. Online and offline combinations for engagement, recruitment and campaigning The prevalence of the online world has obviously spread to the acts of volunteering and campaigning, as is evidenced in this study. And results do indicate that participants consider having an online platform a necessity, with one participant remarking that this “is really important to success for any campaign these days” (female, frequent). This was represented in the results, with ‘a website’ rated consistently high as a choice for campaigning tools amongst both frequent and infrequent volunteers. This result supports Tilt et al’s research (2008), which acknowledged the power and potential of online mediums, a belief that seems to have spread to volunteers themselves, in some regards. However, these tools were selected in conjunction with offline mediums, most prevalently ‘an event e.g. the 40-Hour Famine’, a campaign that combines online and offline engagement and which has been popular since before the rise of internet-based technologies. Also, although ‘Facebook’ was ranked high by infrequent volunteers and focus groups, frequent volunteers who took the survey only ranked ‘Facebook’ seventh highest in their list of campaigning tools. This is a significant distinction between frequent and infrequent volunteers, especially given how integrated into mainstream society social networking has 35 become. All participants also ranked a ‘Youtube video’ low in their selection and all groups except infrequent survey participants ranked ‘Twitter’ lowest. This combination of online and offline tools, and the general rejection of social online tools, supports the hypothesis as well as wider research suggesting that online tools work best when combined with offline tools, not substituting for them altogether (Van Laer & Van Aelst, 2009; Abroms & Lefebvre, 2009). Another significant difference was between the high ranking of ‘television’ by survey participants compared to focus group participants. One possible suggestion for this would be the analytical quality of many of the volunteers who participated in focus groups and had the majority of their experiences being in grassroots organisations with limited resources. Their subsequent mentality was thus keeping with this style and choosing more cost-efficient options. One participant even expressed surprise at being told they were allowed to use whatever tools they were given and stated, “If price doesn’t matter, I’d pick television” (male, frequent). Offline tools were popular in the selection of volunteer engagement tools for frequent volunteers. ‘Regular meetings’ and ‘team-building exercises’ rated highly in both focus groups and survey results, remaining a feature in the top three selections for groups and individuals. However, ‘group camps and retreats’ and ‘regular social nights’ were less popular choices and brings into question the amount of offline engagement needed to allow a volunteer to feel fulfilled and a part of a community. This would suggest that engaging offline does not necessary have to mean engaging in a purely social environment. While the selection of volunteer engagement tools by infrequent volunteers were inconclusive because of numbers, results do suggest that online communications are preferred, even essential. Again, online communications nowadays mean that community and socialising does not necessarily have to be entirely unrelated to work or include ‘hanging 36 out’ outside of hours. One infrequent male volunteer remarked that online platforms require less time and are thus easier. For some volunteers this lower, online-based level of community engagement may be sufficient and, in allowing infrequent volunteers to remain long-term with an organisation, it seems necessary. Finally, these points seems a especially important in the recruiting and retaining of young volunteers or emerging volunteers, as online platforms are obviously something that will be utilised more and more into the future, when establishing how much offline communication should compliment online communication. It should also not be employed as a blanket rule that young people will immediately respond best to online mediums to the point that offline mediums can be foregone. The community and social aspects of volunteering Frequent volunteers in this study did present as having high rates of volunteering exposure, with the large majority of them having family, friends or members of their immediate social circle involved in volunteering. There may be a number of potential factors for why this occurs but ultimately the purpose of the research in this case was simply to assert that frequent volunteers have exposure to likeminded individuals. Given the established influence of volunteers upon younger people (Wynne, 2011; Passy & Giugni in Thackeray & Hunter, 2010), the significance in this finding relates to how people may be recruited as volunteers in the first place. Through utilising existing volunteers, it seems possible that organisations may be able to directly target new volunteers with communications more specifically aimed at them as friends and family members of people who are already known volunteers. However, neither frequent nor infrequent volunteers rated this particular tool, ‘recruitment drives for family and friends’, particularly high when presented with it in the final survey and focus group activity. This may be 37 explained by one volunteer who stated in focus groups “you don’t want to lean on your family to do stuff” (male, frequent). People don’t want to impose upon others with either their sense of obligation or their beliefs. When it comes to the community and social factors of the actual volunteering experience itself both frequent and infrequent volunteers rated ‘community and friendships’ as one of the most important organisational goals, overwhelmingly so in surveys in particular. And, as will be discussed (see Limitations and further research), the difference in results between focus group and survey participants may be because the simple act of working in a community in focus groups negated the need to focus on community in the selection of tools. Said one participant: “the main reward that you get from volunteering, non-financial obviously, is the community and social reward and that comes through team building” (female, frequent). This is backed up by research, as “feeling included significantly impacts how an individual perceives his or her place within that organization” (Waters & Bortree, 2012, p. 94). Volunteers who feel excluded are less productive, less trusting and more likely to leave an organisation (Stein, 2002; Mor Barak, et al as cited in Waters & Bortree, 2012). An important factor, building on these results, relates not only to how important volunteers see community but also to how they see community being valued by the organisation as a whole. Only 19% (n=75) of survey participants felt their organisation valued ‘community and friendships’ as most important, with ‘public perception’ and ‘funding’ rating higher for both frequent and infrequent participants. This discrepancy between what the volunteer values and what the organisation values is significant and relates back to comments made by volunteers themselves who felt undervalued. Frequent participants also showed a preference for offline and interpersonal, as opposed to online, engagement tools consistently, while infrequent volunteer wavered on 38 this point. While some infrequent volunteers obviously value face-to-face community also, their higher levels of appreciation for online engagement is perhaps influenced by their lifestyle. One infrequent participants commented “ I don’t know who’s got the time to do that sort of thing” (male, infrequent) when considering ‘group camps and retreats’ as an engagement tool, while in contrast several frequent participants rated this very tool very highly in their ranking. As discussed in H2, the notion of ‘community’ and ‘socialising’ for volunteers does not necessarily have to be entirely unrelated to work or include ‘hanging out’ outside of hours. Focus group participants expressed appreciation of being able to simply attend meetings and engage with the organisation they were apart of professionally. Proposed one volunteer, “if you’re in an organisation where maybe you’re the only volunteer…you’re wanting to be involved in the meetings and be involved in the team” (female, frequent). Therefore, although this is not a specifically social interaction, for some volunteers this level of community engagement may be sufficient. Motivations in volunteerism facilitating long-term engagement Results from this research study suggest that long-term volunteers do volunteer mainly for altruistic factors, which facilitates a sense of intrinsic or cognitive wellbeing. The top-ranked motivations were ‘I want to do something to help others’, ‘social responsibility’ and ‘it’s the right thing to do’. As discussed in H3, they also showed very high rates of exposure to other volunteers who they met through family, education, work or social circumstances. It is important to acknowledge the comments made by the volunteers indicating that, despite mainly altruistic reasons for volunteering initially, people expect to be treated as someone working for reasons outside of that, with goals and expectations that need to be 39 met, and see that it is human to desire something in return from the contribution of your time. This all ultimately acknowledges a need for volunteers to be rewarded intrinsically and individually and made to feel as valuable, needed and important as they actually are in NGOs and NPOs. Regardless of this, there seemed to be amongst volunteers a level of acceptable reward and extrinsic motivation that may be received from volunteering, but this was not all encompassing. These sentiments were reflected in the results, with extrinsic factors rating consistently low in the selection of volunteering recruitment tools and even organisational goals. Judging by these factors, it would seem that volunteers themselves look down upon the recipients of extrinsic rewards and it is suggested here that using these tools may diminish the volunteering community and experience for both frequent and infrequent volunteers. Limitations & Further Research The key limitation of this study was the relatively small size of the sample population, particularly that of infrequent and short-term volunteers. Approximately 100 people were involved in this particular study and it is not possible to conclude here whether results may be different if a larger or more diverse sample of the population was included. This research also used volunteers from locally focused NGOs as well as those with a global development focus due to the limited number of the latter organisations available. While this limited the research study in some regards, it also opens up the possibility of further research that may explore this topic with a wider sample of a more specific population. The same issue was had regarding grassroots organisations, with this research study unable to secure a large enough sample group from this specific population. Again, this opens up the possibility that 40 a comparison may be explored in future research. It is important to acknowledge that several of the members of focus groups were highly accomplished or high-ranking members of the organisations in which they work. This may have added an analytical quality to the tools chosen here, influencing the results beyond that of just personal preference. Furthermore, the very act of working in a social setting in the process of producing results in focus groups may have potentially negated the idea that community needed to be accounted for in the choosing of tools and may explain the discrepancy between focus group results and survey results in this area. Further research should include the expansion of this research question generally into other areas of volunteerism, beyond that of global development, to establish the circumstances in organisations campaigning on these issues. There was positive potential in the high rates of response from members of The Smith Family organisation particularly, indicating that research on the recruitment and retention of volunteers is relevant to various other NGOs and NPOs as well. Many of the issues established in this paper and wider research may affect volunteer agencies generally and it is important to look at social, psychological and perception-based problems that possibly exists there, either unique or as already discussed in this paper. This may help strengthen the use of communications across the field of volunteerism generally. Conclusion The overall purpose of this research study was to explore why people volunteer and how to make volunteering better so that they are more likely to remain volunteers long-term. Not only does this make the social and positive experience of volunteering more appealing and more rewarding but it also means the organisations that rely on volunteers get the help they 41 need. The suggestions made in this research build upon the insights and instructions in numerous research studies done before by asking questions of volunteers themselves to establish what they love, hate, would change and wouldn’t change about the practice of volunteering. What’s been found is that, in the Internet age, online communities are important but offline communities remain wanted and needed, especially for frequent volunteers. Community of all sorts is essential, the life-blood of a volunteer-based organisation, though this doesn’t mean such an organisation has to manufacture friendships in a purely social environment. Rather, it simply needs to give volunteers the opportunity to interact and engage with volunteers personally in circumstances of frequent engagement, not via mass email send-outs or alike. They should also build on the communities they already have and reach out to the social circles that surround these people to find likeminded and like-motivated individuals. Organisations need to acknowledge the preferences of volunteers and cater their objectives to that, ensuring volunteers feel important and acknowledged, rewards which should fuel the intrinsically-motivated volunteers who organisations should be aiming to recruit in the first place. Time should be spent fulfilling this criterion over trying to lure and tempt volunteers with extrinsic rewards and prizes, however easy that may seem in the short-term. Finally, organisations need to rethink their own images and the image they are portraying of their causes. Using tragedy to gain sympathy has consequences in the long-term, giving the impression that nothing has been accomplished. The people that are attracted to positive, progress messaging instead are people that are very worth having onboard. These suggestions are especially relevant for young people, as this research study had the largest percentage of people aged 35 and under as participants. Given the aging volunteer population and the fact that people in this age bracket are less likely to volunteer than people 42 aged between 36 and 74 (Volunteering Australia, 2012), it is important to focus further efforts on these individuals and establish what genuinely motivates and speaks to them. This research study also analysed groups of data from both short-term versus longterm volunteers and frequent versus infrequent volunteers. In some cases, organisations may have to prioritise either frequency of engagement or longevity in volunteering and, though retention is highlighted here, both serve value purposes in various circumstances. Volunteering is more than just unpaid work. It is a multi-faceted and complicated system and none of these rules will apply to everyone. This is the nature of dealing with so many different, unique individuals. Bortree & Waters (2012) acknowledged this when they stated that “with the underlying push to treat everyone equally and fairly, volunteer managers often fail to recognise that individual differences play a significant role in volunteers’ responsiveness and desire to continue volunteering (Bortree & Waters, 2012). Taking on a volunteer should be a process that is treated with as much respect as taking on an employee. As said one volunteer on the process of volunteering, “the moment that you fall out of love and when you don’t feel that your task is contributing to a cause you just leave and you can because there’s nothing holding you there other than the belief”. The task of NGOs and NPOs is to ensure that there is something holding volunteers in their organisations beyond simple obligation through building community, promoting progress, distributing acknowledgment and showing respect. 43 Reference List Abroms, L. C., & Craig Lefebvre, R. (2009). 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Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063 Wright, K. B. (2005). Researching Internet-Based Populations: Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Survey Research, Online Questionnaire Authoring Software Packages, and Web Survey Services. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 10(3), 00–00. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2005.tb00259.x Wynne, C. (2011). Volunteering is Catching: A Study into Young People’s Volunteering in Victoria 2011 (No. 978-1-875261-18-5). Victoria, Australia: Youth Affairs Council of Victoria. 50 Appendix A Introductory letter – Focus Group recruitment Hello, I am contacting you to enquire whether you would like to be involved in a research study relating to how NGOs can more effectively engage and retain volunteers. This research study is being undertaken as a part of an RMIT University Honours project. We are looking for two types of volunteers in particular to participate in a focus group at RMIT: (1) volunteers who are long-standing and highly engaged, as well as (2) irregular volunteers who participate occasionally or are on the fringe of your organisation. Specifically, we want to model the types of online and face-to-face activities these different volunteer groups prefer. Participants will be offered a small incentive for their time and recruiting organisations will have access to preliminary findings and pre-published data. If you are willing to contact your volunteers and tell them about this opportunity, I ask that you confirm with me by email or phone: Claire’s email is s3199118@student.rmit.edu.au and mobile is 0400068937. To invite your members/volunteers to participate, you can either pass along the attached information yourself, or if you need information in a different format let me know and I can put together something for you. The attachment has a short FAQ outlining specific details of involvement. A second phase of this project will be an online survey based on the focus group results. Whether or not your members participate in our focus groups, we hope you will pass along the link for the survey to your members at that time. Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the researcher (see above) or the research supervisor, Dr Jenny Robinson. Kind regards, Miss Claire Bolge Media and Communication (Honours) RMIT University p: 0400068937 e: s3199118@student.rmit.edu.au Dr Jennifer Robinson Lecturer, School of Media & Communication RMIT University p: (03) 9225 5049 e: jenny.robinson@rmit.edu.au 51 Appendix B Follow-up letter – Focus Group recruitment Hello again, Last week I sent you an email to enquire whether ____ would like to be involved in a research study relating to how NGOs can more effectively engage and retain volunteers. This research study is being undertaken as a part of an RMIT University Honours project. This is a short follow-up email to ensure my email has reached you and to further enquire if you and your organisation would like to be involved in this important research, whether through participation in the focus groups or through completing a short online survey in the coming weeks (please see below). As a former long-term volunteer myself, I understand your time is very limited and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read on. We are looking for two types of volunteers in particular to participate in a focus group at RMIT: (1) volunteers who are long-standing and highly engaged, as well as (2) irregular volunteers who participate occasionally or are on the fringe of your organisation. Specifically, we want to model the types of online and face-to-face activities these different volunteer groups prefer. Participants will be offered a small incentive for their time and recruiting organisations will have access to preliminary findings and pre-published data. If you are willing to contact your volunteers and tell them about this opportunity, I ask that you confirm with me by email or phone: Claire’s email is s3199118@student.rmit.edu.au and mobile is 0400068937. To invite your members/volunteers to participate, you can either pass along the attached information yourself, or if you need information in a different format let me know and I can put together something for you. The attachment has a short FAQ outlining specific details of involvement. A second phase of this project will be an online survey based on the focus group results. Whether or not your members participate in our focus groups, we hope you will pass along the link for the survey to your members at that time. Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact the researcher (see above) or the research supervisor, Dr Jenny Robinson. Kind regards, Miss Claire Bolge Media and Communication (Honours) RMIT University p: 0400068937 e: s3199118@student.rmit.edu.au Dr Jennifer Robinson Lecturer, School of Media & Communication 52 RMIT University p: (03) 9225 5049 e: jenny.robinson@rmit.edu.au 53 Appendix C Focus group protocol 4:45 – 4:55 Seat up projector and laptop, arrange necessary chairs and layout refreshments. 4:55 – 5:00 Seat participants and hand out PICF. Turn on voice recorders. 5:00 – 5:05 Introduction myself and the study: “Hi everyone, thank-you so much for coming. My name is Claire and I’m the researcher behind this Honours project. This group will be running for about an hour and will give you the chance to both respond to stimuli and discuss questions amongst yourselves. The form you are filling out is an information and consent form and explains that no identifying details, including your name, will be published in the final report or be available to anyone outside of myself and Dr Jenny Robinson, my Honours supervisor. If you have any questions at any stage during the group please don’t hesitate to ask me and please help yourself to drinks and snacks. At the end of the session I will hand out small incentives for you all as a further thank-you. Collect PICF. 5:05-5:07 Introduce the first activity: “What you all have in front of you is a short answer sheet, with some demographic and personal response questions on the front and then 16 additional pages. After you fill in the first page you will be seeing a series of images and short video clip commercials. Each image will be shown for 6 seconds and the clips for their duration. After viewing, please use the additional sheets and, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little to not and all and 5 being extremely, indicate next to each listed emotion how much or little this image or clip made you feel that particular emotion. For example, if the clip makes you feel very hostile, circle 5 next to hostile. If you don’t find it interesting at all, circle 1 next to interesting. I’ll give you all a few short minutes to complete to first page and we’ll get started” 5:07-5:10 Participants complete form. 5:10-5:22 Participants view Images 1-12 (6 seconds each) and then respond. 5:22-5:25 Participants view Clip 1 (2:01) and then respond. 5:25-5:27 Participants view Clip 2 (1:01) and then respond. 5:27-5:31 Participants view Clip 3 (2:50) and then respond. 5:31-5:33 Participants view Clip 4 (1:00) and then respond. 5:33-5:40 Introduce second activity pre-discussion. “Before we begin our next activity, I want you all to bring to mind what you think makes a volunteer and what you think makes a campaign. I’d like to ask all of you now what constitutes a volunteer in your mind? Talk to each other about this; the idea here is to generate a discussion between you all as volunteers yourself. So – what is a volunteer?” PROMPTS - Do they receive any sort of financial support? - Is there a difference between a volunteer and an activist? - Is there a stereotype that accompanies the image of the volunteer? 54 - How do they feel about what they’re doing? Do they love it, always? 5:40-5:46 Introduce second activity part 1. “I’m going to split now ask that (indicate groups) move and sit together because we’re going to do an activity in small groups. I’m giving each group a set of cards; blue represents organisational goals, pink represents volunteer recruitment tactics, red represents volunteer engagement tactics. Each group represents a grassroots, Non-Government Organisation. I’d like you to prioritise the tools you’ve been given in each category from most to least important in the next 5 minutes.” 5:46-5:55 Introduce second activity part 2. “Great. Now, your NGO is running a campaign. The green cards I’m handing out are all the potential campaign tools you have access to. I’d like you to spend the next 5-10 minutes choosing your TOP THREE tools and then an ADDITIONAL THREE options from the pile.” 5:55-6:00 Discuss second activity. “Would each of the groups like to quickly run us through the choices they’ve made and why?” 6:00 Thank-you and goodbye. “That’s it for today everyone, thank you so much again for your time. Please feel free to keep in contact (hand out details on cards) and I’ll make sure your organisations have access to whatever findings and thoughts come out of these sessions. I’ll also be distributing a survey in the coming weeks, while you’ll have done many of the activities already it would be great if you could all forward it onto any other volunteers you may have in your organisation or know outside of it. I also have a small gift voucher for each of you as another thank you for your time (hand out gift vouchers) and I hope you’ve all enjoyed the group!” Turn off voice recorders. 55 Appendix D Demographic questions – Focus Groups Age 18 – 25 26 – 35 36 – 55 56 and over How long have you been a volunteer? Less than 6 months 6 months–1 year 1-2 years More than 2 years How often do you volunteer? Rarely Once a year Once a week A few times a year 2-3 times a month 3 or more times a week Who in your life from the following list is/has been involved in volunteering? Choose as many as are relevant My parents My siblings My school community My extended family My friends My church/community group My spouse/partner My friends What is the main reason you volunteer? Choose one It’s fun It’s social Resume builder Makes me feel good about myself I want to do something to help others Social responsibility It’s the right thing to do Other – Please specify Do you receive any financial benefit, incentives or support (however minimal) for your volunteering? Yes No I have in the past What do you like most about volunteering? What do you like least about volunteering? 56 Appendix E Pre-screener survey – Focus Groups Thank you for your interest in my research study. Please take a few moments to fill out the following survey to confirm your participation and allow us to place you in the best possible focus group. Q1 - Why did you choose to volunteer? (100 words or less) Q2 - What is the main reason why you volunteer? (Choose 1) It's fun It's social Resume builder It's the right thing to do Makes me feel good about myself Social responsibility I want to do something to help others Other - Please Specify Q3 - How long have you been an active volunteer? (Choose 1) Under 6 Months 6 Months to 1 Year 1-2 Years More than 2 Years Q4 - How often do you volunteer? (Choose 1) Rarely Once a year A few times a year 2-3 times a month Once a week 3 or more times a week Q5 - Who in the following list have been or are currently a volunteer? (Choose as many as are relevant) My parents My siblings My spouse/partner My friends My extended family members 57 Members of my church or community group Members of my school community Other - Please Specify Please complete the following information so we can assign you to the best focus group. Q6 - Name Q7 - Age (Reminder - Participants must be 18 or older) Under 18 18-25 26-35 36-55 56 and over I'd rather not say Q8 - Please indicate your availability (Choose as many as are relevant) - Please note: various timetables were listed in this section Q9 - If you are unavailable for all of the listed times please indicate a range of times that would be best for you. Q10 - What is your email address? 58 Appendix F Panas scale PANAS scale of 1-5, with 1 being very slightly or not at all and 5 being extremely a) Interested 1 2 3 b) Distressed 1 2 3 c) Excited 1 2 3 d) Upset 1 2 3 e) Strong 1 2 3 f) Guilty 1 2 3 g) Scared 1 2 3 h) Hostile 1 2 3 i) Enthusiastic 1 2 3 j) Proud 1 2 3 k) Irritable 1 2 3 l) Alert 1 2 3 m) Ashamed 1 2 3 n) Inspired 1 2 3 o) Nervous 1 2 3 p) Determined 1 2 3 q) Attentive 1 2 3 r) Jittery 1 2 3 s) Active 1 2 3 t) Afraid 1 2 3 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 4 5 59 Appendix G Introductory letter - Survey Good morning/afternoon, Thank you for your interest in our recently run focus groups, a component of an RMIT University Honours project focusing on how grassroots NGOs with a focus on global development issues can better recruit and retain volunteers. The next component of this study is an online survey, which can be found by following this link. The survey takes 10-15 minutes, can be conducted anonymously and participants will be entered into the draw to win a $100 Coles Myer gift voucher. The only criteria is that you are a volunteer, however frequent or infrequent, and over the age of 18! We hope you can find a few minutes to complete our survey and contribute your valuable opinion to our research study. The survey will be open until midnight September 30th. Again, we greatly appreciate the interest you’ve shown in this study and the time you’ve devoted towards participating. Kind regards, Claire Bolge RMIT University Media & Communications (Honours) s3199118@student.rmit.edu.au 0400068937 60 Appendix H Focus group activity cards – Ranking activity Recruitment tools Word of mouth Recruitment drives at schools Advertising – Facebook, & universities Twitter, social sites Advertising – newspapers, Recruitment drives for family Offering extra class credit radio, job sites & friends opportunities for students Offering giveaways, prizes & incentives 61 Campaigning tools Rally Blogging YouTube video A victim’s story Merchandise: T-shirts & Petitions wristbands Public concerts Celebrity endorsements An event e.g. the 40 Hour Famine 62 Facebook Radio A survivor’s story An event e.g. a gala dinner Humour Website Television Twitter 63 Positive statistics Negative statistics Cold calling 64 Organisational goals – available choices Leadership Publicity Community & friendships Funding Public Perception Awards 65 Volunteer engagement tools – choices available Regular meetings Team-building exercises Group emails Regular social nights Facebook groups Conference calls Task-based incentives & Group camps & retreats rewards 66 Appendix I Focus Group 1 – Transcription Researcher - “So what is a volunteer to you guys?” “Unpaid worker.” R - “Unpaid? No financial support whatsoever?” “Not necessarily.” R - “Do you think receiving financial support makes somebody –” “You can receive a stipend or something if you’re in a placement or something but I guess it’s a little bit different. That said, a volunteer; they still have like a supportive network generally within the workplace.” “It’s doing something without anything expected in return, to me.” “What does that mean?” “I will do something because I believe in it without requiring anyone to pass me or give me anything back in return. And, yeah, with no - no strings attached.” “It feels likes the main focus is the work you do rather than the salary you get.” “But as a volunteer I still expect, like, to be – to be, well when it’s through, with an organisation, I expect to be generally supported and have peers and stuff paid or unpaid to be (inaudible). I think that’s important.” “Do you guys think the type of organisation matters? Like you could be a volunteer for an organisation that’s for profit, not not-for-profit. Cause I know lots of people who say they volunteer for like something, okay maybe an extreme example for like an accounting firm. But that’s them getting experience like they’re getting something out of it.” “I call it work experience.” “They say there’s no such thing as a not – unselfish, good deal. Which is kind of true but I - I don’t think that distracts from the premise of what it means to be a volunteer because it’s about the intention, less so about the outcome for me.” “Can you explain?” “Well in terms of the intention to volunteer somewhere. I go in there because I want to make a difference or I go in there because I believe in the cause or go in there and don’t expect to get something back. But when I do get something back, doesn’t distract from, regardless of what that is whether that ends up being money or whether that’s a social reward, whatever it is, doesn’t distract from the fact that what I’ve done is volunteer myself.” 67 “Some volunteers do go into it though as a resume builder. They are going into to build their skills and you know gain networks and things like that so. It’s not always an altruistic cause.” “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. You have the opportunity to volunteer (inaudible).” “Yeah.” “I think especially in Oaktree and stuff where you get, I mean, as a volunteer you get, often the opportunity to get so much more experience and be in a position of high responsibility where suddenly you’re, you know, running a national something or rather and, like, you know you’d never be able to do that in a real job, so I think the fact that it does offer, you know, experience and people are sometimes doing it for that is also kind of a good thing cause you do get amazing experiences.” “I think the starting point and when you choose to volunteer is really important. If you’ve got spare capacity of time or money or something you can go in and devote more of yourself to it without needing anything in return and its I think much harder for younger people to volunteer than older.” R – “Is there a stereotype that accompanies volunteers?” “(Inaudible) Doing it for - to make a difference. Sometimes it’s hard.” “I think the stereotype something depends on where you’re coming from – sorry I’m talking far too much – like I know my parent’s stereotype is yeah like, idealistic, naïve, like, silly, why aren’t you getting paid you’re an idiot. Where as (inaudible) more of a corporate organisation getting volunteers in, I think, well, we just kind of treat our volunteers quite poorly as though they were less experienced or less kind of worthy of the time and I don’t know if that’s a stereotype it’s just a bad, you know, bad perspective to have but I think since you do, it does seem to accompany like perhaps unskilled or – you know, I think there’s no, less value of someone because they’re not necessarily getting paid to -in some areas.” “I’ve experienced that. And I left the place I didn’t volunteer there anymore after that. You want to know that you’re doing something that’s meaningful and benefit to, like, that ideological thing you’re pursuing.” R – “Do you think a volunteer loves what they’re doing all of the time?” “Pardon?” R – “Does a volunteer love what they’re doing all the time? They’re doing it for free so does that mean they love it? Or can you hate it the way you hate a normal job some days?” “You can definitely hate it” “But you need to love it enough to stick with it and keep going.” “I think that’s why retention, like, retention within volunteer organisations are so short, because the moment that you fall out of love and when you don’t feel that your task is 68 contributing to a cause you just leave and you can because there’s nothing holding you there, other than the belief, I think, yeah.” “It’s interesting to think that to be a volunteer you have to give of yourself and not expect anything in return and yet that act of giving and not getting anything back is what you would hate about volunteering and that you’ve got those two things going along within you at any one time, you don’t want anything back you just want to contribute but god I hate that I’m not getting anything back from day 1 as a human being you’ve got these two desires within you and yeah. That’s interesting.” “It’s interesting the obligation we feel too like it’s a lot easier to walk away without getting money but you’re still - when you contribute you are so why is it easier for us to leave? (Inaudible). ” 69 Appendix J Focus Group 2 – Transcription R – “What’s a volunteer?” “Someone that works to a higher cause. I don’t know what the motivations are but I think it’s just something you want to do outside of your everyday life.” R - “Do volunteers receive any support? Financial? Anything at all?” “They can do.” “Yeah.” “If they need something to do their job or their role. And you can still be a volunteer.” “Just basic essentials. Not over the top.” “One of the motivations that people have got for doing it is to get something they don’t have in their normal life as well. So it’s not just a selfless act. Like it’s not a selfish act but sometimes after you volunteer you feel like you’ve got something out of it that you wouldn’t have got otherwise. In a positive way. And you sort of know that when you start as well. I don’t know what people have done. I guess it depends on what you do, how often you do it (inaudible). “It’s not necessary altruistic. Like I kind of do it for my own personal gain to be honest. I’m quite happy to say that.” “Like stealing guide dog puppies or something?” “To help my CV that’s why I do it.” “Okay” R – “Do you think there’s a stereotype of volunteers? I know a lot of people volunteer to improve a resume or because they have a personal connection, from all different age groups. But do you think there’s an overarching stereotype that you encounter of volunteering. Or that you have of volunteering?” “I think there’s a stereotype of the person that it isn’t. I think its quite difficult to sort of say ‘a volunteers likes this’ but then certain people I don’t think you see volunteering (inaudible) “(Inaudible) what type of volunteering. Social volunteering definitely. I think there’s a stereotype (inaudible).” “What do you mean by social volunteering?” 70 Like, um, I guess kind of the stuff we’re looking at now, as opposed to, you know, doing unpaid work for the – writing for your local community newspaper or something like (inaudible). I think they have a different kind of volunteer.” R - “What about the difference between an activist and a volunteer? Is there one?” “Yes” “Yeah I’d say definitely. The activist comes up with the activity and the idea, if they do, and then the volunteer come (inaudible) I guess. Like I don’t usually think about people who would describe themselves just as volunteers as the people who are going and organising programs and all that sort of -. But again I guess there's such a large sort of spectrum of what people consider volunteering (inaudible).” “If you’re volunteering at an activist organisation then you can’t really escape being an activist.” “Yeah you can. I reckon you can.” “You reckon you can?” (Inaudible). You don’t have to believe in all of it. You can get involved in like a nongrassroots sort of way.” “Activist is a very strong word.” (Inaudible) “It’s pretty hard-core.” (Inaudible) “Yeah I’m picturing someone like throwing themselves in front of a truck or something (inaudible)” R – “Do you think that a volunteer has to (inaudible) love what they’re doing? Like you’re doing it for free so does that mean you have to love it? Or can you have days like a normal job?” “Yep.” “To do it effectively I reckon you have to like it. Cause you can’t do it half-assed.” (Inaudible) donating blood for example. (Inaudible). “Yeah you can get stuff out of stuff that you hate. Like anyone who’s been on school camps knows that. Like you go have a miserable week (inaudible) you remember it was really good.” 71 R – “So what motivates people once the love of a cause or on those days when you’re like ‘I can’t stand this right now and I’m not getting paid’, what – why do you go back the next day as volunteers?” “A lot of people once they say they’ll do something they won’t flake out on it. Like everyone doesn’t feel like doing stuff some days but – do you mean on a day-to-day basis or just why do I keep doing this?” (Inaudible) R – “I guess what motivates people to keep going” “(Inaudible) commitment and especially if it’s a small organisation and you feel like what you’re doing is valued by the organisation and is having an impact” “Yeah it’s much easier to flake out on work than it is on someone you promised to do something for free for.” “Yeah” “So it’s guilt that keeps you there?” “Not necessarily guilt. I think, you know, that wouldn’t be enough to keep you there if you weren’t ever enjoying it” “That’s true” “But on the days that you might, you might feel like there’s nothing else you wanted to do on that day, knowing that you’re valued and appreciated (inaudible)” “Yeah I think you can see the effect of what you’re doing, if you – it’s not having an impact on anyone then you wouldn’t continue” “Yeah if you thought it wasn’t what it was purporting to be or it was actually having a negative effect on the people you were supposed to be helping you – you wouldn’t but if you just didn’t feel like it or something I guess that’s different. But I dunno (inaudible). Once you know other people at organisations that sort of thing it would be easier to go on, I guess. (Inaudible). 72 Appendix K Image analysis activity – Focus Group results (expanded) Image/Clip Pos Total Neg Total Pos Mean Neg Mean Diff 1 – Neg 21.03 23.55 2.10 2.35 -0.25 2 – Pos 31.36 11.45 3.14 1.15 +1.99 3 – Neg 21.73 25.18 2.17 2.52 -0.35 4 – Pos 27.73 11.27 2.77 1.13 +1.65 5 – Pos 25.82 10.18 2.58 1.02 +1.56 6 – Neg 19.55 22.18 1.95 2.22 -0.26 7 – Pos 25.73 10.73 2.57 1.07 +1.50 8 – Pos 31.64 10.55 3.16 1.05 +2.11 9 – Neg 20.64 29.91 2.06 2.99 -0.93 10 – Neg 17.08 19.75 1.71 1.98 -0.27 11 – Neg 20.08 26.08 2.01 2.61 -0.60 12 – Neg 18.83 23.17 1.88 2.32 -0.43 13 – Neg 17.08 24.00 1.71 2.40 -0.69 14 – Pos 26.92 15.83 2.69 1.58 +1.11 15 – Pos 33.50 12.75 3.35 1.28 +2.08 16 - Neu 21.25 22.67 2.13 2.27 -0.14 73 Appendix L Survey Default Question Block Thank you for agreeing to take part in our survey! This is a component of an RMIT University Honours project focusing on how grassroots NGOs with a focus on global development issues can better recruit and retain volunteers. The survey takes 10-15 minutes, can be conducted anonymously and participants will be entered into the draw to win a $100 Coles Myer gift voucher. By entering this survey, you consent to participating in this component of the research study. You will now be shown 6 images, 1 by 1. After viewing each image individually you will proceed to the next page and be given a list of 20 different emotions. You will be directed to indicate on a scale of 1-5 the degree to which the image made you feel each of these separate emotions. The first image is a practice image and the results will not be used in the final findings. When you are ready, please advance to the next page! An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert 74 » Ashamed » Inspired » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery » Active » Afraid An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely Interested Distressed Excited Upset Strong Guilty Scared Hostile Enthusiastic Proud Irritable Alert Ashamed Inspired 75 Inspired Nervous Determined Attentive Jittery Active Afraid An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert » Ashamed » Inspired 76 » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery » Active » Afraid An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert » Ashamed » Inspired » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery » Active » Afraid 77 An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert » Ashamed » Inspired » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery 78 » Active » Afraid An image will appear on this page In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert » Ashamed » Inspired » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery » Active » Afraid An image will appear on this page 79 In regards to the previous image, please indicate the degree to which it made you feel each of the following emotions On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being very little or not at all and 5 being extremely, please choose for each listed emotion Very little/not at all 2 3 4 Extremely » Interested » Distressed » Excited » Upset » Strong » Guilty » Scared » Hostile » Enthusiastic » Proud » Irritable » Alert » Ashamed 80 » Ashamed » Inspired » Nervous » Determined » Attentive » Jittery » Active » Afraid Thank you! You will now be asked to answer 4 different questions relating to recruitment in and running of NGOs. When you are ready, please advance to the next page! In working with an NGO, which goal do you consider to be the most important? Please choose 1 for each of the following options: Community & friendships Funding Awards Publicity Leadership Public perception To you To fellow volunteers To the organisation as a whole Which of the following would you identify as the most important tool for recruiting new volunteers to a grassroots-level NGO? Please choose 3, numbering 1-3 with 1 being the most important Advertising – Facebook, Twitter and social sites Recruitment drives at schools and university Word of mouth Recruitment drives for family and friends Advertising – newspaper, radio and job sites Offering giveaways, prizes and incentives Offering extra class credit opportunities for students Which of the following would you identify as the most important tool for engaging with existing volunteers in a grassroots-level NGO? Please choose 3, numbering 1-3 with 1 being the most important Team-building exercises Regular meetings Group emails Group camps and retreats Regular social nights Facebook groups Task-based incentives and rewards Conference calls Acting as a grassroots NGO campaigning on global development issues (poverty, slavery, fair trade, etc) please select the three tools you consider most important in running a successful campaign. Please choose 5, numbering 1-5 with 1 being the most important Website Television Positive statistics 81 Positive statistics Facebook Merchandise: t-shirts and wristbands A survivor’s story An event e.g. the 40-hour famine A victim’s story Celebrity endorsements Humour A rally Blogging An event e.g. a gala dinner Radio Petitions Public concerts A YouTube video Cold calling Negative statistics Twitter You're nearly done! You will now be asked a few basic demographic questions. When you are ready, please advance to the next page! Age Please note: Participants must be aged 18 or older 18 – 25 26 – 35 36 – 55 56 and over How long have you been a volunteer? Please choose 1 Less than 6 months 6 months-1 year 1-2 years More than 2 years How often do you volunteer? Please choose 1 Rarely Once a year A few times a year 2-3 times a month Once a week 2-3 times a week Who in your life from the following list is/has been involved in volunteering? Choose as many as are relevant My parents 82 My parents My siblings My extended family My friends My spouse/partner My school community My church/community group Other - Please specify What is the main reason you volunteer? Choose one It’s fun It’s social Resume builder I want to do something to help others Makes me feel good about myself Social responsibility It’s the right thing to do Other – Please specify Do you receive any financial benefit, incentives or support (however minimal) for your volunteering? Please choose 1 Yes No I have in the past Are you interested in being a participant in a follow-up focus group? Please note: groups are run only in Melbourne Yes No If you answered 'Yes' to the previous question and/or you would like to be entered in the running to win a $100 Coles Myer gift voucher, please enter a valid email address. Please specify which organisation you currently/most recently volunteer/ed for. 83