Volunteer Capital: A Systematic Review of Organizational Benefits Derived from Volunteers
Abstract
What can a volunteer bring to an organization other than their time? In this systematic review of The Journal of Extension and The Journal of Youth Development’s articles on volunteer capital the emphasis in the literature has been on the value returned to the volunteer and their motivation to volunteer. Eleven out of 1180 reviewed articles in these two journals discussed the volunteer’s cultural, social, and economic capital they bring to, and generate for, nonprofit organizations (e.g. 4-H). Volunteers are known to be extremely valuable to nonprofit programs but what is lacking is connecting perceived volunteer value to their human capital. Once we can classify and quantify the assets, capital, and value volunteers provide to the program we can better understand the return on investment 4-H youth development professionals create when using 4-H volunteers.
The Need for more Research
In this systematic review of the Journal of Extension and the Journal of Youth Development I looked at the value of volunteers through the lens of human capital using the Human Capital Theory. According to this theory human capital is the investment people make in themselves that make them more valuable to an organization, most commonly in economic terms. Human capital is subdivided into the four categories obtained from Bourdieu’s The Forms of Capital.
All four of these types of capital are valuable to a nonprofit organizations due to the cyclical nature of one form of capital providing access to another and vice versa. A volunteer’s human capital directly reflects and affects the organization they belong to making it a valuable resource to study.
Introduction to Human Capital
Human capital will be divided into four forms for this review: economic, social, cultural, and symbolic.
Economic capital is the money or wealth a volunteer has that they could make available as a resource to the organization.
Social capital is the network of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society that the volunteer belongs to and would connect the organization to in turn.
Cultural capital is comprised of the social assets of a person (education, style of speech, style of dress, etc.) that promote social mobility. A volunteer’s cultural capital can affect an organization both positively and negatively by associating them with a culture the volunteers assets reflect.
Symbolic capital can be referred to as the resources available to an individual on the basis of honor, prestige or recognition, and serves as value that one holds within a culture. Examples of volunteers that have symbolic capital include those with prestigious military titles or those that previous have held a high political office.
Results
Journal of Extension Results
Found that the key words of “value” and “volunteers” brought many articles that were not relevant to the value of volunteers. Only 6 between the 2 journals were found to contain at least one variable of value stated in my research question. The majority focused on volunteers giving their time to organizations which is a form of economic capital since you can calculate the economic value of that time. As well as the value of volunteers as mentors which is a form of social capital. 0 found to contain all 4 variables of value.
Journal of Youth Development Results
Found that searching the key words of volunteer capital returned only 4 articles mentioning relevant forms of capital to Bourdieu’s forms of capital. The articles found focus on volunteers’ value and capital being beneficial to youth’s development and the volunteer’s development, or how the volunteer is a valuable economic asset donating their time to the organization. I could find no relevant study on the human capital value volunteers provide to an organization other than economically in the form of time.
Conclusion
What can a volunteer bring to an organization other than their time? This is an important concept that I am proposing we study in order to better understand the full value of each volunteer in the Arizona 4-H program. Once we can classify the assets, capital, and value they provide to the program we can better compare the amount of time and resources we put into each volunteer and determine a volunteers return on investment. Looking at volunteers as assets and youth development outcomes as profit is a novel and likely unattractive idea to many in social sciences and youth development but it is an important concept for the survival and longevity of non-profit youth development programs economically.
Kalee Hunter
4-H Agent, Pima County Cooperative Extension
Kalee has been working for the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension for 3 years. She is interested in topics from non profit volunteer management to youth outdoor education.
This research was co-authored by Dr. Jeremy Elliott-Engel, Associate Director of Arizona 4-H.