The Effects of Career Advice on Expected Impact for Animals

There is limited research on the effects that career advice can have on individuals’ expected impact for altruistic causes, especially for helping animals. In two studies, we evaluate whether individuals who receive a one-to-one careers advice call or participate in an online course provided by Animal Advocacy Careers (a nonprofit organisation) seem to perform better on a number of indirect indicators of likely impact for animals, compared to randomly selected control groups that hadn’t received these services. The one-to-one calls group had significantly higher self-assessed expected impact for altruistic causes and undertook significantly more career-related behaviours than the control group in the six months after their initial application to the programme. There was no significant difference between the two groups’ attitudes related to effective animal advocacy or their career plan changes. In contrast, the online course group made significantly higher levels of career plan changes in the six months after their application than the control group, but there were no significant differences for the other metrics. A number of supplementary analyses were undertaken which support the main conclusion that the one-to-one calls and online course likely each caused meaningful changes on some but not all of the intended outcomes.

Volunteer choice of nonprofit organisation: an integrated framework

Purpose This paper aims to explore how volunteers choose one nonprofit organisation (NPO) rather than another. It identifies the drivers of choice, and the relationship between them, to enable NPOs to strengthen their volunteer recruitment. Design/methodology/approach A total of 51 service-delivery volunteers were interviewed, drawn from 5 leading NPOs. A laddering technique was used to understand the context in which the choice of organisation was made and the underlying personal needs and goals. The data was analysed using means-end chain (MEC) methodology to uncover the relationships between, and hierarchy of, the decision drivers. Findings Brand, cause, and role were found to be important in meeting personal needs and goals through volunteering. The paper makes three contributions. Firstly, it presents a clearer understanding of NPO choice through adopting an integrated theoretical perspective. Secondly, it identifies the decision-making process and key relationships between the attributes of the NPO, the consequences for the volunteer, and the connection to their personal needs. Finally, the study makes an important contribution to literature through presenting a new conceptual framework of volunteer decision-making in the nonprofit context to act as a catalyst for future research. Research limitations/implications This research is both impactful through, and limited by, its context selection: regular service-delivery volunteers from five NPOs within two causes. The paper presents a rich research stream to extend this understanding to other nonprofit stakeholders, other causes including medical volunteer, and smaller NPOs. Practical implications In an increasingly competitive nonprofit environment with a growing need to support the vulnerable in society, NPO sustainability is dependent on their ability to recruit new volunteers. NPOs compete not only with other organisations with similar causes but also those offering similar volunteering roles, and other uses of time to meet personal needs such as sport, career, or community. Understanding how volunteers make their choice of NPO rather than other uses of their time is of vital importance to make the most effective use of scarce marketing resources. This paper contributes to that practitioner understanding. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to extend the understanding of generic motivations of volunteers to consider specific choice of NPO. Unlike previous literature, the authors bring together theory on brand, cause, and role with personal needs. The authors are also the first to apply MEC methodology to the nonprofit context to uncover the personal underlying, less salient reasons behind NPO choice and the relationship between them.

The Internal Communication Barriers: A Communication Audit Report of a Nonprofit Organisation

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate the root cause of the Internal Communication Barriers within a non-profit Catholic religious organization which examined three research questions to arrive at a construct. Design/methodology/approach: The research methodology used in this study is the semi-structured interview with the use of open-ended questions. An audiotape is used to record the findings from the research, and the data generated were analyzed and transcribed using qualitative research and thematic analysis. Findings: This study revealed that the internal communication barriers within this organization have to do with several contributing factors such as (the lack of staff meetings, unwillingness to open communication, the lack of entertaining feedback).

The Use of the Twitter in Public Benefit Organisations in Poland: How Communicative Function of Tweets Translates Into Audience Reaction?

Scientific research into the use of social media in the activities of nonprofit organisations has focused mainly on the scale of their application and on the analysis of the static elements of the social media profile. The research presented in this article concerns the specific form of nonprofit organisation, namely public benefit organisations (PBOs). The aim of the article is, therefore, to identify the leading function of the content published on Twitter and to determine how this function translates into public engagement. During the research process, the content analysis method was used (a sample of 981 tweets was selected for this purpose). The results indicate that Twitter usage by Polish PBOs is of minor importance. Generally, with the exception of the largest organisations, the Twitter profile was primarily focused on delivering information only and, hence, was used in one-way communication.