Issues of Volunteer Retention Paper

Running head: VOLUNTEER RETENTION
Volunteer Retention
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
The main purpose of this literature review is to highlight the issues of volunteer retention,
and along with that the paper dwells through various aspects regarding the issues that can the
volunteers face in the charitable organizations. Volunteer retention can be defined as a chief
indicator in the management of the volunteers. Following some basic rules and regulations of
this theory the management acquires the ability to retain the volunteers of the organizations.
Background
St John Ambulance is a nonprofit institution and the organization is self funded. The members of
this organization dedicate their time to help the people who are in problems related to health
issues. St John’s initial First Aid Training Center was established in Australia in the late 19th
century and by 1883, the organization emerged as an organization having several wings and
branches to serve more people who are suffering from health related issues.
Relation with research problem
The aim of this paper is to highlight the fact that how ST John QLD can retain their
volunteers to ensure they provide the best medical assistance to the people who need it and
especially to the medically disadvantaged persons along with homeless and the elderly people of
the country. Another major purpose of this paper is to attract the attention of the practitioners in
the partner organizations of St John Qld in order to make them feel that their efforts as
volunteers in those organizations are priceless and the organizations are blessed to have a
volunteering workforce like that. Thus this paper projects the importance of these volunteer

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efforts and also highlights that currently for institutions like St John QLD, they are assets, and in
any ways their services should be sustained.
Adoption of the practices related to Volunteer management
It is seen that effective supervision and communication with the volunteers has been
adopted chiefly among the majority of the volunteer organizations. A shocking fact for this
generation is that only 35% of the charities have actually adopted publicly recognizing the works
of their volunteers (Lasker 2016). The target audience of this paper is the youth of Australia who
are interested to work for the society and especially those persons who have the basic idea about
the medical science or physiology. The management of the organization highlights the fact that
they want to attract the other practitioners in the same field and preferably practitioners in the
partner organizations. The volunteers are the nucleus of the charitable organizations and years
after years they invest their time for the betterment of the society. They provide help to the
individuals selflessly whom they do not even know. Volunteers who invest time for St John
Ambulance QLD, they raise funds from the First Aid training centers and by selling the products
related to healthcare and invest that money for the benefit of the individuals in need of medical
assistance (Kamimura and Christensen 2014).
Types of volunteers medical institutions require
Currently there are some specific requirements for volunteers and those are mentioned in
this section. They need community care volunteers, who will provide assistance to the persons
who are homeless, retired persons and who are disadvantaged. Apart from that the organization

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needs apart from that they need volunteer services from the individuals who have a medical
degree (Kamimura and Christensen 2014). These individuals generally serve in the local
hospitals, clinics and provide help to the individuals who are suffering from critical diseases.
Lastly, the organization recruits individuals who serve in the first aid centers and bringing in
patients to the clinics. For this they require only individuals who are over 16 years old and no
specific academic qualification is needed for this. The organization provides a month’s training
to the individuals before deploying them to serve the people in need for the best results.
Volunteer recruitment
The organization should be able to identify the volunteers and encourage them to
participate at an organization level in order to serve the people in problematic situations (Lasker
2016). In order to recruit effectively for voluntary purposes, there are certain ways and those are
mentioned in this section;
 The members of the organization should ask enthusiasts to help in small tasks like
bringing in patients to the institution or giving them the first aid as a first step.
 The management of the organization should proactively publish the roles of the
volunteers who are available to work.
 The management must hold an annual day meeting in order to clarify things, discuss
about the nearing events and apart from that they discuss about their future plans and
distribute the duties of the volunteers.

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Managing the committee
The volunteers must participate in the meetings where they are required to take any
decisions as a group regarding any events or the process they will go through for a particular task
(Withers, Browner and Aghaloo 2013). It would be more beneficial if a person chairs the
meeting for the meeting to be more effectual. These types of meetings enhances the awareness
of how the volunteers are feeling and the outcomes of these meetings can help to distinguish that
who are doing excessive works and who are not getting adequate work to serve the people. These
types of meetings actually enhance the motivation level of the volunteers and increase the
productivity of them. The management should put extra effort in recruiting new volunteers and
they can make the induction training process more effective so that the new entrants can learn
how important they are for the organization and the severity of the services that they are
providing to the individuals who are medically disadvantaged (Mwapasa et al. 2017).
Planning the events
In some charitable organizations there is one person who chairs all the meetings and takes
decisions regarding the forthcoming events and regarding the action plans of the volunteers. In
some cases in the meetings, all the volunteers and the members of the organizations participate
and take decisions regarding these matters (Kamimura and Christensen 2014). In this way the
effectiveness of the meeting gets increased. In these meetings the members can anticipate the
problems that may arise in the future or the opportunities and the strengths of the organization
(Lasker 2016). There should be a proper planning because without a proper roadmap, the
charitable organizations like St John QLD would not be able to provide more assistance to the
people who are in need. The management of the organization might take the examples of World

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Bank and following their footsteps; they can arrange some initiatives and arrange some events in
order to attract more volunteers to join their organization (World Bank, 2017).
Retention of the volunteers
Within an organization, there are numerous members who get engaged in charitable
works and they invest a lot of time for charitable purpose. In order to keep them motivated and
loyal towards the organization the management needs to take some steps. For an example, in an
organization like St John QLD there are many volunteers and out of them the majority are very
competent and they are asset for the organization (Iddins et al. 2015). The management of the
organization must take initiatives so that the competent volunteers are retained successfully. The
management has to use some techniques like reward and recognition (Decroo et al. 2013). As the
members are volunteering their efforts and investing a lot of time, thus the only thing that a
volunteer can expect is the recognition of his or her hard work. At time the volunteers might get
desolated and lose their motivation, but when these sensitive situation arise, the management has
to be specifically cautioned to deal with that situation. In those situations the management has to
deal with the situation very sensitively and try to retain those volunteers who are competent
enough. This has to be done with taking extra care because in this way the society gets benefitted
(Chamberlin et al. 2015). There should be a set of rules and regulations within the organization
regarding these issues in order to maintain a healthy work environment within the organization.
Apart from these, the management has to be extra cautioned regarding the issues where the
volunteers may feel overloaded with work and at times they can think that they are not getting
adequate work to do. When these situations arise, a potential disruption among them can take
place and the management should work on it so that these types of situations never arise and
make things problematic (Bennington 2017). Thus the main issue that these organizations face is

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retention of the volunteers and they should introduce new rules and regulations so that the
volunteers feel that they are important for the organization as well for the society.
Conclusion
Thus to conclude, it can be said that retaining the volunteers in charitable organizations
are always problematic and especially for the St John QLD. This is because, this particular
organization works for the individuals who are in problems related to medical issues and provide
medical assistance to them. It is a matter of fact that if volunteers of these organizations are
reluctant to work for them, then the management will face huge issues regarding the operations
of the organization. In the particular field where this organization operates is highly technical
and the work is quite complex. Thus it will be impossible to replace any competent volunteer
within a short period of time. Thus the organizations need to be always aware o this issue and act
accordingly so that their works to provide assistance to the people who are medically
disadvantaged gets proper assistance.

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References
Bennington, L.A., 2017. Why Do People Volunteer in Free Clinics?.
Chamberlin, M., Grasso, J., Molitch, M.E. and Toledo, P., 2015. Qualitative Analysis of Key
Informant Interviews to Establish Barriers And Solutions for Diabetes Care In a Rural Bolivian
Clinic. The Journal of Global Health Care Systems, 5(3).
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Iddins, B.W., Frank, J.S., Kannar, P., Curry, W.A., Mullins, M., Hites, L. and Selleck, C., 2015.
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Lasker, J.N., 2016. Hoping to help: the promises and pitfalls of global health volunteering.
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Mwapasa, V., Joseph, J., Tchereni, T., Jousset, A. and Gunda, A., 2017. Impact of Mother–Infant
Pair Clinics and Short-Text Messaging Service (SMS) Reminders on Retention of HIV-Infected

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Women and HIV-Exposed Infants in eMTCT Care in Malawi: A Cluster Randomized
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Mwapasa, V., Pro, G., Chinkhumba, J., Mukaka, M., Kobayashi, E., Stuart, A., Gunda, A.,
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Withers, M., Browner, C.H. and Aghaloo, T., 2013. Promoting volunteerism in global health:
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World Bank. (2017). World Bank Group - International Development, Poverty, & Sustainability.
[online] Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].

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Appendix
Volunteer’s retention level during their period of service
(Bennington 2017)

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Volunteer retention level over the years
(World Bank, 2017)