Volunteer motivations in civilian volunteer search and rescue organizations

Abstract

Most scholarship on volunteer motivation examines everyday scenarios rather than disaster or emergency contexts. Environmental hazards and their devastating social impacts continue to grow in severity and frequency, creating an increased opportunity for disaster-related volunteerism. Disaster volunteerism diverges from traditional volunteerism in location, timing, activities, and risk. Thus, examining what motivates people to volunteer during disasters is critical. Using interviews and observational data from ethnographic work with civilian volunteer search and rescue (SAR) organizations, this study examined what motivations compelled their volunteers to action. Findings showed that volunteers had similar motivations to the functional perspective on volunteer motivations in everyday contexts, while also uniquely supporting the disaster volunteer sector. Further, findings pointed to an additional motivational concept for external rewards and shifting narratives that operated in a cyclical nature to motivate volunteers within their respective SAR organizations. Combined, these insights offer support for previous research and provide evidence that there are unique factors that may play a critical role in volunteer motivation in disaster settings.