Research Results:
Paper Abstracts

Performing Different Types of Volunteer Work:
The Role of Religious and Other Networks

Kirsten A. Grønbjerg and Brent Never.

Nonprofit Management and Leadership 15 (Winter, No. 2): Copyright © 2004 by Wiley Periodicals. Abstract reprinted by Permission of Jossey-Bass Publishers. Revised version of paper presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Salt Lake City, October 31-November 2, 2002.

Abstract

Given current efforts to strengthen volunteering and promote faith-based provision of social services in the U.S., it is appropriate to examine both the underlying complexity of volunteering and who performs particular types of volunteer work. This paper, drawing on a telephone interview survey of 526 Indiana residents, considers whether religious involvement helps explains engagement in different types of volunteer work independent of other contributing factors related to family status, socio-economic status, and community attachment. We find that religious involvement plays an independent role, but only for certain types of volunteer work.

Click here to access supplementary tables (you will need a free copy of the Acrobat program to read this file). These tables contain the results of cross-tabular and Chi-square analysis of the bi-variate relationships between (1) overall volunteering and involvement in different types of volunteer work and (2) four sets of predictor variables: family status, socio-economic status, community attachment, and religious involvement. The tables were omitted from the published article because of space constraints.