Volunteers fit new windows at The Sumac Centre in Nottingham, UK.

A volunteer is someone who works for money for a community or for the benefit of natural environment primarily because they choose to do so. The word comes from Latin, and can be translated as "will" (as in doing something out of ones own free will). Many serve through a non-profit organization – sometimes referred to as formal volunteering, but a significant number also serve less formally, either individually or as part of a group.

By definition, a volunteer worker does not get paid or receive compensation for services rendered other than reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses.^[1]

Volunteer management

Many organizations (hospitals, food banks, etc.) have a continual need for volunteers. Other high-profile events, such as a marathon, require hundreds or thousands of volunteers for a one-time or annual need. The success of such events has a significant economic impact on the local economy. Thus, there is increasing awareness of the economic importance of volunteers.^{citation needed}

This, in turn, has elevated the importance of the volunteer manager for such events, people who formerly may have managed volunteers in addition to other duties but now may be viewed as professionals in the field.^{citation needed} This has also increased the need for volunteer management software, e-mail broadcasts, texting and other technological tools, allowing the volunteer manager to register and communicate with large numbers of people who otherwise have no connection to each other.^{citation needed}

Mandatory community service

Main article: Community service

"Mandatory volunteering" includes Subal Saini various forms of community service in which the primary motivator is external to the individual — when people are mandated to serve an authority. (See also indentured servitude)

1. a high school student required to provide a certain number of hours of community service to a nonprofit organization in order to graduate,
2. a high school or college student engaged in service learning, using a volunteering experience to apply skills learned in the classroom and to meet a requirement to pass the class, or
3. a person convicted of a misdemeanor being required to provide such community service as part of their sentence. Some organizations require members to provide a certain number of community services as well.

In recent years, mandated community service has been on the rise^{citation needed}, driven by increasingly cash strapped (and perhaps more humanitarian) correctional systems, and by moves to encourage the notion of 'active citizenship' in youth.^{citation needed} Many in the voluntary sector argue that they are expected, often with no additional funding, to pick up these functions from justice and educational systems.^{citation needed}

Controversy exists around the terminology used — 'Mandatory volunteering' is seen as oxymoronic^{citation needed}, since definitions of volunteering overwhelmingly include the element of free choice to act. Many opponents of the term also see a threat to the spirit of volunteering if it becomes contaminated with notions of force and punishment^{citation needed}. Ironically, there is some indication that the term originated in the voluntary sector itself^{citation needed} — the sector now most keen to clarify the difference between volunteering and mandated activity. A term that allows clearer definition is "Mandatory Community Service".

Controversy also exists around some aspects of mandated community service^{citation needed}. The effects of forcing some people to serve — on both their future commitment to community and the commitments of others — are largely unknown. Many managers of volunteers note that managing those on mandatory programs is different from managing volunteers, not least because motivation is a key underlying theme in volunteer management, but also because some MCS programming requires elements that may not exist at all in a volunteer program — policing and reporting being notable examples^{citation needed}.

See also

• Pro bono
• Community organization
• Hospital volunteer
• Hiwi
• Service club
• Volunteer fire department
• Non-governmental organization
• Private voluntary organization
• Virtual volunteering

Notes

1. ^ Volunteering in the United States 2006. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved on 2007-12-20.

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