Volunteerism and social capital : a functional approach.

Volunteerism is often promoted as particularly likely to contribute to social capital, the bonds of trust and reciprocity created in social networks. However, volunteer work may only lead to such beneficial outcomes when certain conditions are met. A functional approach to volunteerism (Snyder, Clary & Stukas 2000) suggests that individual outcomes, such as volunteer satisfaction and retention, are more likely when volunteers are able to meet their important goals and motives for their service in their actual activities. In a small survey of Australian volunteers, we examined whether social capital outcomes, such as generalised trust in others and psychological sense of community, were similarly related to the matching of motivation and available benefits. Our results support such a contention and we discuss its implications and the need for future empirical research on the creation of social capital.