Volunteer Recruitment, Activation, Commitment, and Retention: An Introduction to the Special Issue

The topic of volunteer recruitment, activation, commitment, and retention is an area of growing concern in the nonprofit sector. There is a consistent view in research literature (Cuskelly, Hoye, & Auld, 2006; Rochester, Paine, Howlett) that volunteering in developed communities is under pressure from a number of factors that intersect and impact on volunteers at different levels. These include broader socio-demographic patterns such as an aging population, increasing social inequalities, disruption of marriage and family ties, reduction in religious attachment, suburbanization, and, the fragmentation of traditional community life and interaction patterns due to residential mobility (Evers, 2016). Some authors (Lim & Laurence, 2015) have thus argued that due to these pressures and others there has been a decline in volunteering. Diverse theoretical lens can be applied to understand volunteering, including marketing to attract and retain volunteers through relationship marketing (Bussell & Forbes, 2006), volunteers experiencing transformation (Mulder, Rapp, Hamby, & Weaver, 2015), internal marketing strategies to increase volunteer retention (Bennett & Barkensjo, 2005), self-congruity theory to investigate the match to organization and volunteer (Randle, Dolnicar, & Bennett, 2011), quality of life and motivation to volunteer (Taghian, D’Souza, & Polonsky, 2012), and applying agency, stakeholder, and stewardship theory to enhance nonprofit governance and thereby various aspects of volunteering (Van Puyvelde, Caers, Du Bois, & Jegers, 2011). Corporate volunteering programs (Grant, 2012) offer several distinctive advantages to nonprofits, particularly economies of scale for recruiting and organizing volunteer efforts yet are relatively little researched, for example, using the lens of corporate social responsibility. The purpose of this special issue was to provide an opportunity for the dissemination of empirical work on volunteerism. Its further intent was to provide an opportunity for the critical examinations of various aspects of volunteerism and to progress its study and application. The papers included in this special issue also focus and extend our understanding of key issues around marketing and social media with volunteers. The first paper by Kappelides and Johnson examines the key volunteer management challenges faced by volunteer managers and coordinators in the USA, Australia, andCanada. The results were gathered over 4 years (2015–2018) and provide an in-depth analysis of the challenges faced by volunteer managers of which has not been collected previously. This research study has provided evidence that volunteer managers have several challenges in their roles and require the support of their nonprofit organization to manage volunteers. Research into the management of volunteers suggests that volunteer managers and/or coordinators in nonprofit organizations may need to facilitate a more strategic approach to managing and supporting their volunteers to increase their volunteering outcomes. This study makes an important contribution to the literature and volunteer sector by providing evidence that by establishing volunteer management practices that are supportive and engaging will, in turn, enable volunteers to successfully carry out their roles, which may lead to volunteer retention. Volunteer managers need to have resources, time, and support JOURNAL OF NONPROFIT & PUBLIC SECTOR MARKETING 2020, VOL. 32, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/10495142.2020. 1719324