International Volunteering Capacity Development: Volunteer Partner Organization Experiences of Mitigating Factors for Effective Practice

Abstract

Scholarly studies documenting the relationship between international volunteering and capacity development for international development organizations have increasingly presented the benefits and challenges of international volunteering from the perspective of partner organizations, thereby filling an important gap in the scholarship on international volunteering. As this body of literature grows, we can identify common themes pertaining to capacity development outcomes for international development organizations in the Global South. We examine the emergent body of literature on insights provided by host country volunteer partner organizations (VPOs) in relation to international volunteering outcomes, particularly as they relate to the positive and negative contributions to capacity development. Building on this scholarship, the paper builds on the studies documenting benefits and challenges of hosting international volunteers by uncovering diverse experiences of partner organizations that participate in a range of international volunteer program models (e.g. duration of volunteer service; working with a team of local volunteers; volunteer skills and competencies; language and technical training requirements, etc.). The empirical study presented in this paper involved cross-national, multivariate analyses of diverse experiences of partner organizations, drawing on findings from 288 survey responses by VPO staff from 68 countries. The findings from this study advance the scholarship on agency, subaltern voices and VPO experiences by documenting mitigating factors that contribute to a more in-depth understanding of capacity development contributions of international volunteers.

keywords:

• international volunteering
• international development
• capacity development

Notes on contributors

Dr. Rebecca Tiessen is University Chair and Professor at the University of Ottawa in the School of International Development and Global Studies. She is Board Member and past-President of the Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID). Her areas of research include international and community service learning, global citizenship education, internationalization in higher education, international volunteering, and gender and development. She received her BA in Political Science from Wilfrid Laurier University, her MA in International Development and PhD in Sociology and Rural Studies from the University of Guelph.

Dr. Benjamin Lough is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Faculty Director of International Service at the Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis. He also works as Senior Researcher for the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and is a Senior Research Associate for the Center for Social Development in Africa, University of Johannesburg. He is an Associate Editor of Voluntaristics Review and serves on the Board of the Building Bridges Coalition – a US-based coalition of hundreds of international volunteer-cooperation organisations. Dr. Lough’s research interests include: volunteerism, community development, and non-profit management. He earned his BS in Sociology in 2000 and his MSW in 2003 from Brigham Young University, and his PhD in 2010 from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

ORCID

Rebecca Tiessen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1700-5644

Benjamin J. Lough http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8106-9207

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under grant number: 890-2014-0051.