Modeling Animal Shelter Volunteer Satisfaction: The Importance of Internal Policies

ABSTRACT

This research examines the predictors of volunteer satisfaction in animal shelters. It assesses the relative importance of volunteer demographics, the attributes of the shelter, and the policies and procedures governing the volunteer experience. Volunteering takes place within organizational contexts creating a dynamic relationship between the individual and the organization. The study compares the importance of volunteer and organizational traits and organizational policies in volunteer satisfaction. Based on a survey of 651 animal shelter volunteers, it concludes that policies and procedures under the control of the organization are most important in contributing to volunteer satisfaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Volunteer satisfaction
• animal shelter volunteers
• animal shelter policies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Due to length constraints on the survey the full VIF was not employed.

2. To create the indexes, the variables were entered into a factor analysis and standardized scores were saved. For the factor analysis the standard SPSS defaults of varimax rotation and listwise deletion of missing data were used.

3. Higher scores indicate less transparency.

4. It should be noted that the survey provided response options beyond just male and female for gender identity.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.