Developing an appropriate volunteer management model

Volunteers are an essential pillar for the social services. However, there is a lack of active research into effective volunteer management practices, especially for the social services sector. This book outlines the development of volunteerism in Singapore and reviews the current state of volunteering research, at the same time exploring the theoretical basis of commonly used volunteer management models and their misfit with the values of the social services sector, having been imported from the corporate sector. As a step towards developing an appropriate model for the voluntary sector, the second part of the book embarks on an exploratory study of volunteer management practices in the hospice sector in Singapore. The study comprises of in-depth interviews with hospice volunteer managers investigating the nature of volunteer management currently practiced and the factors leading to their choice. The findings are analyzed with reference to the volunteer involvement model suggested by Rochester (1999). The findings suggest the most effective models are not necessarily only those which adhere closely to the workplace model.