AROUSING AND DEVELOPING VOLUNTEER ENGAGEMENT IN NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS THROUGH MENTORING

Abstract

Volunteering is an important factor of socio–economic development. In Poland, the rates of engagement in Volunteering is an important factor of socio–economic development. In Poland, the rates of engagement in voluntary work are ones of the lowest among developed countries. Nonprofit organizations, in which formal volunteering is most often carried out, have problems not only with the recruitment of social workers, but also with encouraging them to long–term cooperation. Arousing and developing the engagement of these people favors the fulfillment of their needs, including those ones which are connected with the improvement of competences. One of the ways is mentoring. In the literature related to the subject, it is most often discussed in the context of cooperation with paid employees. The authors of the presented text focused on a much less analyzed issue – the possibility of using it in work with volunteers. They presented the essence of mentoring, its types preferred in nonprofit entities, the desirable competences of a mentor. The purpose of the article was to identify the possibilities of using mentoring techniques to arouse and to develop volunteers’ engagement in the activities of nonprofit organizations. In order to realize it, they formulated the following questions (research problems): what model of mentoring can be applied to volunteers of nonprofit organizations? what stages does it consist of? what techniques of mentoring can be used in each of these stages to arouse and to develop volunteers’ engagement in social work? They carried out an analysis of the available literature related to the subject and used their own experience in the field of mentoring and a cooperation with nonprofit entities.
Key words: volunteering, mentoring, engagement, nonprofit organizations, third sector
JEL: J24, L30, O15