Volunteers are not usually thought of in the context of government. Indeed, most volunteers donate their time to nonprofit organizations rather than public agencies. Yet, citizens contribute a surprisingly large amount of labor to governments at all levels. Accordingly, this chapter examines the involvement of volunteers in the delivery of services funded and provided by public agencies. Given our focus on service delivery, we do not cover citizen involvement in public policy making, for example, sitting on a government board or oversight committee, or citizen participation in government in other ways, such as by attending public meetings, council proceedings, legislative hearings, or the like; contacting public officials, whether elected or appointed, to raise a complaint, concern, or issue; or engaging in additional political behaviors, including voting, displaying a yard sign, wearing a political button, etc. Although these forms of citizen participation in governmental affairs are...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Brudney JL (1990) Fostering volunteer programs in the public sector. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Brudney JL (1999) The effective use of volunteers: best practices for the public sector. Law Contemp Probl 62(4):219–255. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1192274
Brudney JL, Sink HK (2017) Volunteer management: it all depends. In: Word JKA, Sowa JE (eds) The nonprofit resource handbook: from theory to practice. Taylor and Francis, New York.
Brudney JL, Lee YJ, Ockenden N, Bin Afif SA (2016) Volunteer service programs in nonprofit organizations, businesses, and government agencies. In: Smith DH, Rochester C, Stebbins RA, Grotz J (eds) The Palgrave handbook of volunteering and nonprofit associations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Cnaan RA, Handy F, Wadsworth M (1996) Defining who is a volunteer: conceptual and empirical considerations. Nonprofit Volunt Sect Q 25(3):364–383
Corporation for National & Community Service (2015) Volunteering and civic life in America, 2015. Retrieved 16 Mar 2016 from http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov
Department of Homeland Security. Federal Emergency Management Agency. Community Emergency Response Teams. Retrieved 14 July 2016 from https://www.fema.gov/community-emergency-response-teams
Freyss SF, Behrens PI (1994) Volunteers require more than amateur status. PA Times 17(1):1–2
Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985)
Groble P, Brudney JL (2015) When good intentions go wrong: immunity under the volunteer protection act. Nonprofit Policy Forum 6(1):3–24. doi:10.1515/npf-2014-0001
Haynes HJG, Stein GP (2016) U.S. fire department profile. National Fire Protection Association. Retrieved 14 July 2016 from http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/fire-statistics-and-reports/fire-statistics/the-fire-service/administration/us-fire-department-profile
Independent Sector (2016) National value of volunteer time, 2014. Retrieved 16 Mar 2016 from https://www.independentsector.org/volunteer_time
International Fire Chiefs Association (2005) Leading the transition in volunteer and combination fire departments. The Red Ribbon Report. Retrieved 14 July 2016 from http://www.iafc.org/files/1VCOS/vcos_RibbonReportRed.pdf
Karl BD (1984) Lo, the poor volunteer: an essay on the relation between history and myth. Soc Serv Rev 58(4):493–522. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/30011758
Mendel v. City of Gibraltar. 14 Mi.6thd 1789 (2015)
Musick MA, Wilson J (2008) Volunteers: a social profile. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Naylor HH (1967) Volunteers today: finding, training and working with them. Association Press, New York
Nesbit R, Brudney JL (2013) Volunteer use in local government service delivery. In: The municipal year book 2013. ICMA Press, Washington, DC
U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. SS201-219 and 29 CFR S553.100-106 (1985)
U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2654 (1993)
U.S. Volunteer Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. §§14501-14507 (1997)
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016) Volunteering in the United States, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm
Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 (1997) Section 4. 42 U.S.C. SS14503-139. Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/105/plaws/publ19/PLAW-105publ19.pdf
Weisbrod BA (1988) The nonprofit economy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Weitzman MS, Jalandoni NT, Lampkin LM, Pollak TH (2002) The new nonprofit almanac and desk reference: the essential facts and figures for managers, researchers, and volunteers. Independent Sector, Washington, DC, pp 80–81
Wilson J, Musick M (1999) The effects of volunteering on the volunteer. Law Contemp Probl 62(4):141–168. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1192270
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Brudney, J.L., Harris, J.L., Sink, H.K. (2016). Volunteers in the Public Sector. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_519-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_519-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences