"i've fallen in love and i want to meet you": A longitudinal study on new volunteers motivation

Abstract

Purpose: To describe motivational factors of new volunteers of a religious foundation, based in Paraíba (Brazilian northeast) the light of the model proposed by Cavalcante (2012) for a longitudinal period of two years. Originality/value: There is no consensus on aspects related to the motivation to perform voluntary activity, neither in context abroad nor in the Brazilian context. There are high turnover rates of these individuals, due to ease of entering and leaving this activity, without clarity in their causes. It is a longitudinal research, carried out in two opportunities: 2013 and 2015, unpublished in a national context. It attempts to lessen disagreement of voluntary motivations in the national context. NGOs managers might help to assist maintenance of their recent volunteers. Design/methodology/approach: It is a quantitative research, carried out through a validated model in Brazil, and its factors: Altruistic values, social justice, affiliation, learning and selfish values. Data were analyzed through descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variance and percentage), ANOVA (analysis of variance), T test for independent samples and correlation (bivariate). Findings: Civic bias, learning objectives and NGO identification emerged as the main motivators. There is evidence that greater academic training has an inverse correlation with the tendency to seek the organization just to fill free time. Another finding was that volunteers with higher indices in altruistic motivations tend to act in other institutions as well, the opposite was found for those with motivations that are closer to the selfish profile.