NVSQ Blog

The Individual-Altruism Nexus: Rethinking Motivation in International Development Volunteering

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

Anthony Fee¹, Peter Devereux², Cliff Allum³, and Phoebe Everingham⁴

¹University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, NSW, Australia, ²Murdoch University, WA, Australia, ³University of Birmingham, UK, ⁴Macquarie University, NSW, Australia

Research on international volunteering has long reported on the complex motivations volunteers bring to their international assignments (e.g., Meneghini, 2016). Yet these studies rarely consider how the decision to volunteer fits within the broader sweep of volunteers’ careers – particularly when volunteers are highly skilled professionals and when the decision to volunteer introduces substantial opportunity costs, including financial compromises and professional and personal disruptions. Why do skilled professionals accept long-term assignments as international development volunteers (IDVs) that interrupt, or set back, their career trajectories? And how do they reconcile the costs and benefits of volunteering from a career perspective?

Our study of fifty highly skilled Australian IDVs examined these questions by exploring how career and altruistic motives intersect in volunteers’ decisions to serve abroad. Research shows that volunteers whose personal needs are fulfilled report higher satisfaction, remain engaged for longer, and are more effective in achieving development outcomes during their assignments (Nencini et al., 2016). Thus, these dynamics are of interest to organisations and communities that host volunteers, as well as to the international volunteer cooperation organisations (IVCOs) that recruit, place, and support volunteers.

Several of our findings break new ground in understanding IDVs’ motivations. Almost all the volunteers in our study described being at a professional transition point when they commenced their assignment: entering the workforce, reconsidering their career direction, seeking renewal, or closing a professional chapter. Their assignment was rarely viewed as a one-off career hiatus. Instead, the participants’ narratives were characterised by a deliberate attempt to integrate their professional capability with prosocial work that they hoped to continue after their assignment. The decision to volunteer, therefore, had altruistic and strategic goals – a means of entwining their professional capability with a (more) meaningful career that would extend well beyond the assignment’s duration.

No Gifts, No Strings: How a Good Cause Stands on Its Own

Photo provided by Dr. Hiller

Maximilian Hiller, Devin Kwasniok, and Vanessa Mertins

University of Vechta, Germany

Nonprofits invest real effort in bringing new volunteers into the fold. They refine their messaging, polish their outreach, and try small gestures to make the first step feel welcoming. A branded mug on someone’s desk, a handwritten note slipped into an envelope, or a modest voucher added as a small token of appreciation. Alongside these gifts, they open simple entry points and reach out with an easy ask, hoping a small first yes makes the next one feel natural. All of this effort hinges on the idea that the right external pull helps someone cross the line into action.

Our study tells a quieter, more grounded story. We also expected that these strategies would help, and that the real question was simply which one worked best for sparking repeated engagement. Yet, when we put them to the test in a natural field experiment, their influence proved far smaller than expected. People were not moved by gifts, nor by the light lift we offered. They followed the call because the cause was clear and meaningful. The mission itself did the heavy lifting.

The challenge of Touching Art and Technological Innovation Management Models for a More Inclusive Society

Photo of Baldarelli’s visit to Omero Museum Ancona-Italy (2024)

Maria-Gabriella Baldarelli¹, Eleonora Cardillo²

¹University of Bologna (Italy), ²University of Catania (Italy)

Rethinking the Role of Cultural Institutions in Times of Uncertainty

The current state of the art presents situations of profound uncertainty for the future due to climate change and war conditions that generate a widespread feeling of fear. Therefore, the need is to rethink the role of public and private organizations and the meaning of creating networks that can lead to positive and hopeful circuits.

Part of the literature positions art as an important antidote to fear. Furthermore, we question the problems of resilience in cultural institutions trying to discover the dynamics that allow the continuation of the use of art works, identifying dimensions that can support it. To try to participate in this debate is important to contribute to investigating relationships between new technologies and fruition management in cultural institutions in order to promote inclusion for a more sustainable society. Cultural institutions, such as museums, play an essential role in generating social inclusion in order to push a broader cultural change.

Technology, Inclusion, and Vulnerability

New technologies are playing an important role in this topic, because the relationships among social integration and technologies are crucial, in order to make the community sensitive regarding vulnerable people with special needs and for the creation of a new paradigm of sustainability.

Furthermore, many research works are mainly focused on the role of technological innovations in supporting inclusion without specifying the type of “vulnerability”, which instead is very important in making products, including the cultural ones, shared and usable.

Moreover, literature involved digitalization in the context of museums in general, but the aspects concerning inclusion and the possibility, through digitalization, of promoting a broad-spectrum of cultural change are less considered.

Organizing Civility: Bridging Practices in Islamic Welfare Organization

Photo from Dr. Kalia’s field work

Sumrin Kalia¹ and Gregory Jackson²

¹Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, ²King’s College London, UK

Often when we think of non-profits, we tend to focus on efficiency, organizational image, or fundraising. However, these organizations also play an important social role, leaving lasting impacts on the relationships, values, and social boundaries that shape civic life. They can promote inclusion, justice, and enable dialogue across social boundaries, but the opposite may also be true.

What can civil society organizations do to enable a coexistence that values justice over exploitation, cooperation over conflict, and inclusion over exclusion?

This question anchors our recently published article, “Organizing Civility: The Ethics of Adab in an Islamic Welfare Organization”. We look at the case of ‘Saylani Welfare Trust’ an Islamic welfare organization that engages in what we call ‘practices of civility’. Saylani draws inspiration from Sufism a mystical tradition of Islam that emerged in the eighth century.