Does Getting A Stipend Count As Community Service

Friday, May 11, 2012 - 8:15am

posted by
Carlton Yoshioka, Ph.D.,
Professor and Managing director
of Academic Programs
ASU Lodestar Heart

Welcome to Research Fri! As role of a continuing serial, we invite a nonprofit scholar, student, or professional to highlight electric current research reports or studies and discuss how they can inform and improve 24-hour interval-to-day nonprofit practise.

Nigh researchers agree that low-income earners volunteer less (Wilson, 2012) and Pho (2008) extended this finding to include medium-wage earners. A related enquiry question is the impact or positive incentive of volunteer stipends among low-wage earners (McBride, Gonzales, Morrow-Howell, & McCrary, 2011). Does the incentive of monetary support influence how people classify their altruistic desires to aid others? Is there a positive issue for organizations that provide stipends for volunteers?

In March of this year, The Virginia Yard. Piper Trust funded an expansion of the Encore Fellowships programme that originated in California. Experience Matters is a nonprofit organization that capitalizes on the time and talent of older adults (age l+), who are seeking paid or unpaid positions that apply their skills to social purposes. According to Nora Hannah, CEO of Experience Matters, the Piper Trust back up will allow Experience Matters to place developed volunteers with nonprofit organizations that are typically unable to afford this level of talent.

The original Encore Fellowships program in California pairs sometime corporate professionals with clinics and consortia in the Central Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Surface area. Through the program, clinics proceeds expertise in financial management, human resources, information technology, process improvement, and strategic planning. The fellows, experienced professionals who are at or near retirement, are able to use the skills gained in their former roles to make a difference, earn a stipend, and learn about transitioning to work in the nonprofit sector. Fellows receive a $25,000 stipend for a ane,000-hour (half-time), 12-month assignment.

Despite limited enquiry on the effectiveness of stipends on volunteers, investigators (McBride, et. al., 2009) institute that stipends promote inclusion, efficiency and effectiveness. This study investigated older adult volunteers serving in the Feel Corps programme across 23 U.S. cities. All the volunteers were working as tutors in local elementary schools. Volunteers received stipend support from several sources, including federal AmeriCorps programs, individual foundations and schoolhouse districts. They typically signed up for x to 12 month terms; served 15 hours per week; and received monthly, taxable stipends of well-nigh $290. Stipends varied from city to city, merely on average were near $2.77 an hour.

The researchers (McBride, et. al., 2009) found that stipended older developed volunteers served for longer periods of time than non-stipended volunteers, and that their motivations for serving were as altruistic equally not-stipended volunteers. Additionally, stipended volunteers reported college perceived benefits of participation than not-stipended volunteers. There is also evidence that stipends do not necessarily concenter people who are less donating, merely do attract people who might otherwise remain uninvolved, opening upwards a pool of new volunteers for organizations.

In contrast, Tschirhart, Mesch, Perry, Miller, and Lee (2001) found that stipended and non-stipended volunteers in their sample of AmeriCorps volunteers did not accept a meaning difference in satisfaction or the likelihood of future volunteering. These volunteers were more often than not adults that were under the age of 30, (79%) which could account for the non-significant impact of stipends.

More enquiry on developed volunteer stipends is needed to ostend the positive results. Boosted inquiry on stipends for the general population of volunteers is even timelier, as the Obama administration continues to aggrandize stipended volunteers through AmeriCorps and other federally backed programs.

Sources:

1. McBride, A., Gonzales, E., Morrow-Howell, N., & McCrary, S. (2009). A example for stipends in volunteer service. Center for Social Development, George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. CDS Working Papers 09-12.

ii. McBride, A., Gonzales, E., Morrow-Howell, N., & McCrary, S. (2011). Stipends in volunteer service: Inclusion, retention, and volunteer benefits, Public Assistants Review, 71:6, 850-858.

3. Pho, Y. (2008). The value of volunteer labor and the factors influencing participation: Evidence for the United States from 2002 through 2005. Review of Income and Wealth, 54, 220-236.

4. Tschirhart, M., Mesch, D., Perry, J., Miller, T., & Lee, Thousand. (2001). Stipended volunteers: Their goals, experiences, satisfaction, and likelihood of hereafter service, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, xxx, 422-443.

5. Wilson, J. (2012). Volunteerism research: A review essay, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41, 176-212.