Voluntary engagement plays a significant role in many areas of social life. It occurs in various contexts, whether professionally related in professional associations or within family settings, such as in sports, cultural, or parent associations, simply as a form of leisure activity, as an expression of political beliefs, or in the form of social engagement. The activities are as diverse as the motivations behind voluntary engagement.

For a long time, there was little information on the volume and nature of voluntary engagement in Austria. In 2009, the Ministry of Social Affairs published the first Voluntary Report, which was created by the NPO Competence Center (then NPO Institute) in cooperation with a team of authors. Research on voluntary work has a long tradition at WU, with the first data collected by o.Univ.Prof. Dr. Christoph Badelt in the early 1980s, laying the foundation for further research efforts. As part of a research project, there was another significant study on the volume of voluntary work in Austria, authored by Eva More-Hollerweger, who has been addressing this topic since the late 1990s.

In addition to the societal impacts of voluntary engagement, we at the NPO Competence Center focus on the management of volunteers. Unlike traditional personnel management, the management of volunteers involves entirely different conditions that must be taken into account. Volunteer management is becoming increasingly important for organizations, as traditional forms of recruiting and retaining volunteers are losing significance. Lifelong engagement in a volunteer organization is now more of an exception. Volunteers adapt their engagement to their respective life phases and interests, choosing their fields of activity accordingly and showing a preference for time-limited, project-based tasks. Therefore, volunteer organizations must find engagement opportunities that align with both the interests of the volunteers and the goals of the organization. This has led to the emergence of new forms of engagement, such as micro-engagement, corporate volunteering, and digital engagement.

Contact: 

Eva More-Hollerweger