Connecting with Volunteers: Memorable Messages and Volunteer Identification

Abstract

Many of the 1.8 million registered nonprofit organizations in the United States rely on the services of volunteers to be able to connect with and meaningfully serve their communities. However, volunteers are less likely to receive formal socialization and training than paid employees. Thus, this study employs the concept of memorable messages as a way for exploring the ways in which messages received by volunteers from a variety of organizational sources may affect their volunteer identification with the nonprofit organization they serve. Three results emerged from the data, including: (a) sources of memorable messages in volunteer organizations; (b) types of memorable messages in volunteer organizations; and (c) a significant relationship between memorable message type and level of volunteer identification. Implications for connecting with volunteers and for future research are explored.

Keywords:

• Memorable Messages
• Organizational Identification
• Volunteers

Notes

Note. Pairs of means with different subscripts differ significantly at the .05 level.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah Steimel

Sarah Steimel (PhD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2011) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Weber State University.