Volunteering and Social Development : A Background Paper for Discussion at an Expert Group Meeting New York by Justin Davis - October 1999

Section 3: The Benefits of Volunteering

20. Why should governments be interested in promoting volunteering? Especially when some voluntary activity can be seen as a challenge to the authority of the state. There are two major benefits of volunteering. First, an economic one: volunteering makes an important economic contribution to society. Activities undertaken by volunteers would otherwise have to be funded by the state or by private capital. Volunteering adds to the overall economic output of a country and reduces the burden on government spending. But volunteering has a second and perhaps more important benefit. Volunteering helps in the building of strong and cohesive communities. It fosters trust between citizens and helps develop norms of solidarity and reciprocity which are essential to stable communities. Moreover, by helping to build this 'social capital' volunteering also plays a role in economic regeneration.

The Economic Benefits of Volunteering
21. Although volunteering undoubtedly makes an important economic contribution we know very little about the scale of its impact. Volunteering is excluded from the United Nations System of National Accounts and few governments have attempted to collect systematic data on either the extent of voluntary activity or its economic value. The few studies which have been carried out point to the magnitude of its contribution. For example, a survey of volunteering in the UK in 1997 suggested that half the adult population took part in voluntary work, contributing a notional £40 billion to the economy (Davis Smith, 1998); while a recent survey in Canada suggested that over five million adults volunteered, adding some $16 billion to Gross Domestic Product. Two large cross-national surveys in recent years also point to the importance of volunteering. A survey in eight European countries in 1994 found an average participation rate in volunteering across the continent of 23% (Gaskin and Davis Smith, 1995); while the 22-nation study reported on by the Johns Hopkins Institute in 1998 found volunteer involvement running at an average of 28%, equivalent to almost 10.5 million full-time employees (Salamon and Anheier, 1998).

22. The failure of governments to measure the contribution of volunteering to the Gross Domestic Product is a sign of the low status in which it is held. Volunteering remains a marginal and invisible activity. In this respect it has a good deal in common with household work. The women's movement has long argued for a value to be placed on the contribution made (mainly by women) in the domestic economy as an important first step in the legitimization of such work. So long as women's household work remains invisible in economic terms, it is argued, governments will continue to ignore it. The same is surely true of volunteering. In the absence of regular, reliable information on its extent and contribution, governments will continue to overlook its importance and fail to take account of the volunteering dimension when developing policy.

23. Attempts are being made to fill this information void. A joint study between the Johns Hopkins University and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is developing a framework for measuring the economic contribution of voluntary and community organizations (including the value of volunteering) for use in Satellite accounting; while the UNDP aims to include measures of governance and participation in its 2001 Human Development Report. CIVICUS, the world alliance for citizen participation, is meanwhile developing its own civil society index, which includes a measure of the level of involvement in the making and implementing of public policy.

Social Capital
24. Participation has long been seen as an essential element of good governance and effective development. Numerous studies have attested to the link between user involvement and the success of water, sanitation and environmental projects in many different parts of the world (See, for example, Kahkonen, 1999). The UNDP Poverty Report for 1998 concluded that: 'UNDP's experience suggests that community anti-poverty programmes should be firmly based on "social mobilization" (UNDP, 1998). Poor people may be relatively powerless as individuals, but not when they mobilize themselves together in communities'.

South Asian Poverty Alleviation Programme (SAPAP) Pilot programme started in 1996 supporting the poverty reduction efforts of 6 countries: Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Since the start of the programme around 80,000 households have formed themselves into 3,500 community organizations which have helped launch thousands of individual and family income-earning activities and built up numerous community assets from irrigation systems to roads.

25. Volunteering also has a contribution to make as part of the development of social capital. By building trust and reciprocity between citizens volunteering contributes both to a more cohesive, stable society and to a more economically prosperous one. In his classic study of regional government in Italy Robert Putnam (1993) concludes that differences in performance between regions can be accounted for largely by differences in levels of social capital. This he defined as 'features of social organization, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions'. One of Putnam's key measures of social capital was participation in voluntary associations, or horizontal 'networks of civic engagement'.

26. Several recent studies have pointed to a link between social capital and economic advance in developing countries. Anirudh Krishna and Norman Uphoff (1999), for example, found a positive relationship between levels of social capital (as measured by informal networks and mutual support) and village performance with a watershed conservation and development programme in India; while Deepa Narayan (1997) found a link between involvement in voluntary associations and household welfare in Tanzania.

Just how social capital performs this function is not clear from the literature but three main ways have been suggested: by facilitating the sharing of information among members of groups; by increasing cooperation; and by facilitating collective decision making.

In her study in Tanzania Narayan looked for evidence of social capital by measuring involvement in associations and trust in institutions amongst 750 households. The village chosen for the study was found to be rich in voluntary and community groups, ranging from rotating credit associations and burial societies to clubs for youth and elders. Involvement was high, with over 70% of the population belonging to at least one group and an average membership of 1.5 groups per person. By matching up data on associational involvement and household income the study concluded that there is a positive link between social capital and household welfare.

27. Social capital also appears to have a role to play in building social cohesion. In a separate study Narayan (1999) draws a distinction between 'bonding' social capital developed within groups and 'bridging' social capital arising from the interaction between groups. For social capital to contribute to social integration there needs to be not only high levels of associational activity but a dense network of cross-cutting ties among groups. The point is powerfully illustrated by Ashutosh Varshney (1998) in a study of communal riots in India. In seeking to explain why some towns with a mix of Hindu and Muslim populations remain free from conflict while others with a similar population profile erupt into ethnic violence, Varshney looks at the role played by voluntary associations and informal community networks in building social capital. He concludes that those areas with low levels of communal strife are characterized not simply by high levels of associational activity but by high levels of cross-cutting engagement between the Hindu and Muslim populations.

28. Governments have a role to play in investing in social capital, in supporting the voluntary and community organizations which nurture it. As Christiaan Grootaert (1999) has concluded in a paper looking at the link between social capital and household welfare in Indonesia: 'The promotion of social interaction among poor farmers may need to complement the provision of seeds and fertilizer. A well functioning parent-teacher association may be a necessary complement to building schools and training teachers'. Or as Robert Putnam (1993) has put it: 'For political stability, for government effectiveness, and even for economic progress social capital may be even more important than physical or human capital'.

Benefits to the Volunteer
29. Volunteering also brings benefits to the volunteer. In parts of the world mutual support provides the essentials of life - food, clean water, health care, education. Volunteering is bound into the very fabric of life and is indivisible from the struggle for survival. In other parts of the world volunteering serves a very different function. Here volunteering is much more a life-style choice. People can chose whether or not to spend part of their free-time in a voluntary activity. Many millions do so and attest to the benefits of participation. Volunteering enables people to meet new friends; learn new skills; gain in confidence and self-respect. Perhaps above all, volunteering brings personal satisfaction. In one study in the UK volunteering was identified as the second greatest source of joy behind dancing (Argyle, 1996).

30. Volunteering brings particular benefits to those suffering from social exclusion. For people with disabilities participating in volunteering can aid social integration and challenge negative stereotypes of disabled people as passive recipients of care. For unemployed people volunteering can improve employability by providing essential work-experience and opportunities for skills development and training. For young people volunteering offers opportunities for self-development and risk-taking and provides a valuable grounding in the practice of citizenship. For older people volunteering has a positive contribution to make to the process of 'active ageing' by helping the newly retired adjust to life without the structure of the workplace, by providing opportunities for life-long learning and by improving physical and mental well-being. In addition to age specific benefits, volunteering can help to ease tensions between age groups and foster notions of intergenerational solidarity through such mentoring initiatives as Foster Grandparent schemes.

31. And yet in many countries there is an inverse relationship between volunteering and social exclusion. The most marginalized groups in society are the least likely to participate. The barriers to participation are well documented: poverty, unemployment, youth alienation; poor organizational practice. One should be wary of trying to foist volunteering on those at the margins of society. For many people the search for paid employment and the daily struggle for survival leaves little time or energy for voluntary work. There is a forceful critique of volunteering, particularly in the developing world, which dismisses volunteering as a 'tax' on the poor, in particular on poor women, already shouldering much of the burden of family care and (increasingly) of economic survival. But there is an alternative viewpoint. By shifting the focus away from service to others and emphasizing the personal benefits of involvement - broadening of networks, acquiring of skills and experience, help with finding paid employment - volunteering can be seen as a powerful resource acquisition strategy for those suffering from economic and social disadvantage. For volunteering to contribute most effectively to social integration it is essential that opportunities for greater involvement are opened up to people from excluded groups.

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