The Effective Use of Volunteers: Best Practices for the Public Sector
The Effective Use of Volunteers: Best Practices for the Public Sector
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有效利用志愿者：公共部门的最佳实践
DOI：
10.2307/1192274
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发表时间：
1999
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
J. Brudney
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
J. Brudney
Jeffrey L. Brudney [*]引言关于志愿者参与公共和非营利组织提供服务的问题，有几个神话。[1]也许最常见的是，志愿人员是“免费的”，或者不给东道组织带来任何金钱上的费用，他们可以“拯救”那些在财政崩溃边缘摇摇欲坠的机构。[2]几乎同样常见的是，不能“解雇”志愿人员，或者更极端地说，不能管理志愿人员。[3]其他神话包括志愿者将执行任何工作任务的信念，他们随时可以为所有需要他们的组织服务。[4]然而，志愿者项目也有一个可悲的缺点，那就是他们与有报酬的员工产生了敌对关系。[5]像大多数神话一样，那些与志愿者参与有关的神话也包含着一丝真理。没有经过仔细设计的程序很可能成为已确定的弊病甚至更糟的问题的牺牲品。[6]或者，在精心设计的项目中，志愿者的参与可以帮助机构实现使用志愿者的好处，避免使用志愿者的陷阱。最成功的项目实施机制和程序来管理志愿者工作，并有效地管理其新的人力资源。[7]虽然在大多数情况下，学术文献没有考虑志愿者计划设计和管理的最佳实践问题，[8]但许多实践文献详细描述了蓬勃发展的志愿者计划的特征。基于对公共机构志愿者项目的大样本调查，本文试图提供这些最佳实践在公共机构中出现频率的初步证据。这篇文章假定了最佳做法和志愿者参与所带来的好处之间的关系。在考虑这种分析时，读者应该意识到两个因素。首先，由于没有有效的志愿者绩效衡量标准，这里使用的效益衡量标准来自项目主管的看法。其次，由于政府志愿者项目的人口参数未知，这里分析的项目样本不能说是代表性的。[9]然而，样本是大的和异质性的，和d以前的研究没有系统地检查的功效，声称的最佳做法，尽管明显需要这样做。本文接下来的两节介绍了必要的背景。第二部分界定了以政府为基础的志愿者计划，界定了实证分析，第三部分考察了志愿者参与公共部门的程度和范围。第四部分讨论有助于志愿工作者最佳做法的因素。然后，文章在第五部分考虑了从政府志愿者项目样本中收集的数据及其分析方法，并在第六部分提出和解释了实证研究结果。文章最后总结并讨论了本研究的意义。二、界定公共部门的志愿人员方案“志愿人员”的定义以及志愿服务或志愿服务等相关概念是有争议的。大卫·霍顿·史密斯（David Horton Smith）在对这一概念的早期论述中指出：“奥伦塔尔主义代表了一种人类活动，这种活动是如此多样，以至于无法进行充分的描述。然而，如果我们能够设计出一些简略的方式来提及志愿者和非自愿主义的主要子类型，我们就只能希望理性地处理这些种类繁多的活动。“[10]大约20年后，在回顾了该领域的大量文献--300多篇文章和报告--Ram A. Cnaan和同事们发现了很多关于志愿者概念、组成维度、测量方法和指标的解释。[11]他们的结论是，“虽然大多数学者都同意志愿服务的重要性，但对于什么是志愿服务，什么不是志愿服务，却没有什么共识。…
JEFFREY L. BRUDNEY [*] I INTRODUCTION Several myths surround the involvement of volunteers in public and nonprofit organizations in the delivery of services. [1] Perhaps the most common are that volunteers are "free" or impose no monetary costs on the host organization, and that they can "save" agencies teetering on the edge of financial ruin. [2] Nearly as common is the assertion that volunteers cannot be "fired" or, in more extreme form, cannot be managed. [3] Other myths include beliefs that volunteers will perform any job task, and that they are readily available to all organizations that want them. [4] Volunteer programs have the lamentable drawback, however, that they engender adversarial relationships with paid staff. [5] Like most myths, those pertaining to volunteer involvement contain a grain of truth. Programs that have not been designed carefully are likely to fall prey to the identified maladies and worse. [6] Alternatively, in programs that have been structured carefully, volunteer participation can help agencies realize the benefits and avoid the pitfalls of using volunteers. The most successful programs implement mechanisms and procedures to administer the volunteer effort and manage its novel human resources effectively. [7] Although for the most part the academic literature has not considered the issue of best practices in volunteer program design and administration, [8] much of the practitioner literature describes in detail the characteristics of a thriving volunteer program. Based on a large sample survey of volunteer programs in public agencies, this article attempts to provide tentative evidence of the frequency of these best practices in public agencies. The article posits a relationship between best practices and the benefits realized from volunteer involvement. In considering this analysis, the reader should be aware of two factors. First, because validated measures of volunteer performance do not exist, the measures of benefits used here emanate from the perceptions of the program directors. Second, because the parameters of the population of volunteer programs in government are unknown, the sample of programs analyzed here cannot be said to be representative. [9] Nevertheless, the sample is large and heterogeneous, an d previous research has not systematically examined the efficacy of the purported best practices, despite the manifest need to do so. The next two sections of the article present the necessary background. Part II defines government-based volunteer programs to delimit the empirical analysis, and Part III examines the extent and scope of volunteer involvement in the public sector. Part IV discusses the elements that contribute to best practices with volunteer workers. The article then considers in Part V the data collected from the sample of government-based volunteer programs and the methods used in their analysis, and presents and interprets the empirical findings in Part VI. The article concludes with a summary and discussion of the implications of the research. II DEFINING VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR The definition of "volunteer" and related concepts such as volunteerism, or voluntarism, is controversial. In an early treatment of the concept, David Horton Smith noted that "[v]oluntarism represents a category of human activity that is so varied it defies adequate description.... Yet we can only hope to deal rationally with this great variety of activities if we can devise some shorthand ways of referring to major sub-types of volunteers and voluntarism." [10] Some twenty years later, reviewing the voluminous literature in the field--more than 300 articles and reports--Ram A. Cnaan and colleagues uncovered a great many interpretations of the volunteer concept, constituent dimensions, and measurement methods and indicators. [11] They concluded that, "[a]lthough most scholars agree on the importance of volunteerism, there is little consensus as to what is, and is not, volunteerism. …