Recruiting and Retaining Older Adult Volunteers: Implications for Practice

Abstract

There is an increased interest in the promotion of volunteering within nonprofit organizations. In this paper organizational supports for recruiting and managing volunteering among older adults are explored. The paper describes an intervention comprising an intergenerational reading program delivered by volunteers in eight schools in the Republic of Ireland. The research draws on qualitative data from a mixed-methods research project (2009–2011) that evaluated outcome and process aspects of the reading program. The qualitative data was collected from a group of older volunteers aged 55 years and older. This present study frames the empirical findings within a volunteering framework that involved deductively analyzing the data using attributes associated with “volunteerability” and “recruitability.” Through this analytical framework a number of features were identified as contributing to greater knowledge of marketing strategies to recruit and retain volunteers within nonprofit organizations. The paper concludes with a set of core practice messages for organizations that rely on volunteers in the delivery of their service.

KEYWORDS:

• management
• marketing
• nonprofit organization
• older adults
• practice implications
• recruitment
• retention
• volunteering