Tjarks Case Study

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Columbia Basin College *

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English

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Dec 6, 2023

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ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE Original Case Study Narrative Boys and Girls Clubs Volunteer Retention Crisis Justen Tjarks 31 May, 2023 English 410 Columbia Basin College Author Note This narrative was prepared for English 410, taught by Bob Pedersen.

ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE Boys and Girls Clubs Volunteer Retention Crisis "Thank you for calling to let us know; hopefully, there will be another opportunity for you to volunteer for us soon. Have a great day." Kyle hung up the phone, placed his hands on his forehead, and sighed. That was the third volunteer to cancel the upcoming event for his Boys and Girls Clubs of America branch. This time, it was due to a personal scheduling conflict that occurred last minute. The time before that, the volunteer felt uncomfortable disclosing their reason for being unable to fulfill their obligation. Every event came with new volunteer faces and required additional training. Volunteers are needed for everything from fundraising events to field trips for the kids. Kyle wondered why younger volunteers seemed much more likely to cancel or not show up for a volunteer obligation while the older volunteers often came back repeatedly to offer assistance. Kyle asked his operations manager for help understanding what was happening. Shari was in her office, writing an email to one of the donors for the upcoming fundraiser. "Hey, Kyle! Give me one second to finish this up, and I'll be right with you," Shari said, looking up from her keyboard to see Kyle in the doorway. Kyle replied, "No problem!" and waited by the door, trying to think of the right questions to ask. With a flourishing tap of the enter key, Shari exclaimed, "All done! Now what can I help you with?" Kyle entered and sat across from her. He explained that another volunteer had called to cancel, and Kyle was worried they might be short-handed. "I've noticed a bit of a trend with who cancels most often," Kyle said, "and it seems our younger volunteers have the most difficulty sticking to their obligation. What could we do to help motivate them?" Shari sat back and pondered for a moment. "Maybe we should send a short survey out to our volunteers. See what motivated them to offer to volunteer in the first place, then see what got

ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE in the way. Maybe we can address the most common issues before they occur." Kyle agreed that would be a prudent step. He thanked Shari for her time and went off to work on developing a short survey. The questions included what motivated the initial desire to offer volunteer service, how many volunteer events the individual has attended in the last year, and what companies the individual had volunteered for. Then, the questions related to whether any barriers to fulfilling the obligation to volunteer had come up, and if so, what those barriers might have been. Kyle then pulled up the volunteer contact list and sent the survey out, hoping to get enough responses to be useful. A week passed, and out of the 100 surveys sent out, only three returned a response. Kyle knew people didn't like filling out surveys, but he had hoped for a more helpful response. One of the survey responses stated that they had offered to volunteer to gain hours for a college course. Kyle had an idea; he needed to provide an incentive to respond to the surveys. There wasn't room in the budget to offer money, but he figured he could award a bonus volunteer hour to be applied to a future volunteer event as compensation for a survey response. Kyle drafted another email to send to the volunteers and cleared the idea with Shari before moving forward. Within the next two days, Kyle received ten additional responses. The responses all had a similar theme, indicating that financial or personal factors often affected the individual's ability to volunteer. Some responses, however, indicated that the individual made a special effort to fulfill their volunteer obligations. In one custom answer field relating to barriers to volunteering, the individual stated that their mentor had taught them to value volunteerism highly. They said their mentor had instilled a deep desire to give back to the community and that it felt like every citizen's duty to volunteer their time.

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ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE Kyle felt he needed a larger sample of responses. He started looking for studies that would have the information he needed. "The Immediate Effects of Changes in Life Circumstances on Volunteering Decisions in the USA" by Won et al. (2022) provided some information relating to how major life events can affect the likelihood of volunteering. The study covered whether an individual became a homeowner, a renter, employed, unemployed, married, single, had a change in the number of children they had or in the number of household members' volunteering. Becoming a homeowner and getting married were associated with an increased likelihood of volunteering. All other factors were negatively associated with the likelihood of volunteering. Interestingly, becoming unemployed didn't just make a person less likely to volunteer; it was also positively associated with a desire to start volunteering. Kyle knew some programs offer to pay recently unemployed people to provide volunteer services to local non- profit organizations. Figure 2: What makes people start/stop volunteering (Won et al., 2022, p. 798)

ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE Kyle then wondered how mentorship could affect the desire to volunteer beyond external motivators. He knew mentorship was important to Boys' and girls' clubs and that when the kids had a mentor, they performed better. The article "Cultivation of Natural Mentors to Strengthen Resiliency in Youth: A Program Theory of Youth Initiated Mentoring (YIM)" by Van Dam and Schwartz (2020) presents a conceptual model that explores the impact of youth-initiated mentoring (YIM) on the development of resiliency in young people. The authors suggest that YIM can enhance self-efficacy, promote positive identity development, and facilitate positive social connections, leading to improved academic and social outcomes and reduced risk behaviors. Properly mentored, individuals were more successful at engaging in a positive social

ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE manner. Figure 1: Program theory YIM approach (Van Dam, Schwartz, 2020, p. 7) Kyle wasn't sure what to make of the information. It would be great if every volunteer had the level of dedication represented by the response from the individual that had a mentor

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ORIGINAL CASE STUDY NARRATIVE who valued volunteerism, but that mentorship likely began in childhood. Volunteers from organizations like People for People had incentives provided by that company to volunteer, and as a result, they were much more reliable. Given the short interactions he often had with volunteers that came directly to him, it seemed unlikely that they could provide similar effective incentives. Perhaps, Kyle thought, volunteer drop-off was inevitable. Case Study Questions: 1. How could Kyle incorporate mentorship into his volunteer program? 2. What kinds of incentives could a non-profit provide to volunteers to encourage involvement? 3. Is it better to gather volunteers as needed on an individual basis, or to maintain fewer relationships with motivated and returning volunteers? 4. Should people volunteer at all, or is volunteerism unnecessary in a properly functioning capitalistic society?

Tjarks Case Study

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