The international volunteering market: market segments and competitive relations

The number of nonprofit and social agencies relying on the help of volunteers has grown enormously in recent decades. This has lead to increased competition between these organisations for the limited resources available, and the growing adoption of what have traditionally been considered ‘commercial’ business techniques such as marketing. There have been calls for greater and more sophisticated use of ‘tried and tested’ marketing concepts such as competition, segmentation, and positioning to help volunteering organisations manage this pressure effectively. This study shines the spotlight on individuals who volunteer for multiple types of organisations in an effort to determine which organisations are competing for the same volunteers. More specifically: * factor analyses are computed and four segments of volunteers are identified: ‘altruists’, ‘leisure volunteers’, ‘political volunteers’ and ‘church volunteers’; * positioning maps are constructed to illustrate the proximity of each organisation type in relation to key competitors; and * detailed profiles are provided for each segment to provide insight into the nature of the groupings.