'It's a personal thing' volunteer motivation across two generations in a Sydney area health service - implications for management

Abstract

This paper reports on a small qualitative study conducted with 30 volunteers from an Area Health Service in the northern suburbs of Sydney. The study was designed to ascertain the ways in which the motivation of hospital and health service volunteers may have changed over time. The paper considers the implications that such changes may havefor maximising the effectiveness of the Area Health Service s recruitment and support of volunteers today. Two groups of volunteers were interviewed about their original reasons for volunteering and the reasons why they continue to volunteer Thefirst group commenced volunteering between 1970 and 1986 and the second group commenced volunteering after 1997.