Understanding Nonprofit Organizations, 4th Edition

PART VIII Managing Volunteers and Staff^*

DOI: 10.4324/9781003387800-37

Volunteering is an important and distinguishing feature of civil society in countries around the globe. Volunteering and voluntarism represent a distinctive aspect of nonprofit organizations.¹ It is almost impossible to discuss the nonprofit sector without mentioning volunteers, and indeed, it is not uncommon to hear the nonprofit sector called the voluntary sector. Because volunteers and nonprofits fit together so closely, many of us mentally connect voluntarism with the nonprofit sector only, even though many citizens also volunteer with government libraries, fire departments, emergency medical services systems, schools, veterans’ hospitals, and numerous other public ...