QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

This forum contains all archives from the SD Mailing list (go to http://www.systemdynamics.org/forum/ for more information). This is here as a read-only resource, please post any SD related questions to the SD Discussion forum.
Locked
""Megan Hopper"" <mhopper83@h
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by ""Megan Hopper"" <mhopper83@h »

Posted by ""Megan Hopper"" <mhopper83@hotmail.com>

I was wondering if anyone has seen SD research about volunteering.
An undergraduate student at UNLV is doing his thesis on how to keep people volunteering their time to environmental organizations.

If you have any information please let me know.

Thanks,
Megan Hopper
Graduate Student
Environmental Studies
UNLV
Posted by ""Megan Hopper"" <mhopper83@hotmail.com> posting date Mon, 05 Mar 2007 10:49:57 -0800 _______________________________________________
George Richardson <gpr@albany
Member
Posts: 20
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by George Richardson <gpr@albany »

Posted by George Richardson <gpr@albany.edu>


On Mar 6, 2007, at 5:25 AM, System Dynamics Mailing List wrote:

> Posted by ""Megan Hopper"" <mhopper83@hotmail.com> I was wondering if
> anyone has seen SD research about volunteering.

My first thoughts on this interesting question are that there's a lot of psychology and sociology in it. Probably the first place to look for work on the topic would be in those areas, where forces affecting interest, curiosity, motivation, group dynamics, group cohesion, the ""joiner"" personality, values, and so on, are considered.

My second thought is that as stated the problem is not obviously a system dynamics problem. That is, it requires some development to see this question as a dynamic problem. What graphs over time would one draw to begin to see this as a dynamic phenomenon?

That second thought suggests that some people may have studied this question using things like multiple regression (logit and probit?), to see what bits of numerical data help to predict the probability that people continue volunteering over some time frame, or predict the length of time of volunteering. If that sort of study exists, it might actually answer the student's question, or it might be able to be turned into a dynamic problem statement and the beginnings of a feedback view that might help to explain the dynamics.

If that sort of study doesn't exist, I might suggest that the student take a step back from the system dynamics approach and instead try to carry out some version of such a multivariate regression study.

..George

George P. Richardson
Chair of public administration and policy Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy University at Albany - SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 Posted by George Richardson <gpr@albany.edu> posting date Tue, 6 Mar 2007 09:12:21 -0500 _______________________________________________
Larry Hirschhorn <lhirschhorn
Newbie
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by Larry Hirschhorn <lhirschhorn »

Posted by Larry Hirschhorn <lhirschhorn@cfar.com>

A systems dynamics issues might be what governs the attraction, retention and quitting of volunteers. For example, if the rate of recruitment exceeds the capacity to train then, the rate of quitting might be unacceptably high.
More recruitment simply leads to more churn

Larry
Posted by Larry Hirschhorn <lhirschhorn@cfar.com> posting date Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:24:38 -0500 _______________________________________________
wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pd
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pd »

Posted by wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pdx.edu>

Megan Hopper asked if anyone has seen SD research about volunteering.

My immediate thought when I read her post was that I would use a modified epidemic model, but then I thought that this was so obvious that I decided not to reply, figuring someone else more articulate than me would mention it. When no one did, I wondered if my initial reaction was offbase.

I don't think so. The stocks would represent groups of people:
Potential volunteers, Active volunteers, Burned Out/Inactive Volunteers or whatever. The idea would be to try to model the flows between these stocks, perhaps largely dependent upon the contacts between people in this different groups (propotional to the product of the populations of each pair of groups). Each contact would have a likelihood of resulting in someone deciding to volunteer,to stop volunteering, or whatever.

However, I have not actually seen any research on this.

Wayne Wakeland
Systems Science Program
Portland State University
Posted by wakeland@pdx.edu
posting date Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:29:35 -0800 _______________________________________________
wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pd
Junior Member
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pd »

Posted by wakeland@pdx.edu <wakeland@pdx.edu>

Megan Hopper asked if anyone has seen SD research about volunteering.

My immediate thought when I read her post was that I would use a modified epidemic model, but then I thought that this was so obvious that I decided not to reply, figuring someone else more articulate than me would mention it. When no one did, I wondered if my initial reaction was offbase.

I don't think so. The stocks would represent groups of people:
Potential volunteers, Active volunteers, Burned Out/Inactive Volunteers or whatever. The idea would be to try to model the flows between these stocks, perhaps largely dependent upon the contacts between people in this different groups (propotional to the product of the populations of each pair of groups). Each contact would have a likelihood of resulting in someone deciding to volunteer,to stop volunteering, or whatever.

However, I have not actually seen any research on this.

Wayne Wakeland
Systems Science Program
Portland State University
Posted by wakeland@pdx.edu
posting date Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:29:35 -0800 _______________________________________________
Francisco Perez <francisco77p
Junior Member
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2002 3:39 am

QUERY Volunteer Dynamics

Post by Francisco Perez <francisco77p »

Posted by Francisco Perez <francisco77pp@yahoo.com>

Hi. I think that in general volunteering may be approached using a combination of diffusion theory, consumer behaviour, social marketing and demand management applied within a context where profit may be in second instance. However, care must taken regarding the general context of ""timing"" of such volunteering and the events/ phenomena causing volunteering. For example, volunteering in times of emergency (say days, hours) is not exactly the same as volunteering when a continuous and sustained help is needed over time (say month years). In the first case, additional treatments such as rare/extreme events response management should be taken into consideration.

Posted by Francisco Perez <francisco77pp@yahoo.com> posting date Fri, 9 Mar 2007 08:24:10 -0800 (PST) _______________________________________________
Locked