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This chapter explores volunteerism among Korean Americans. Korean Americans in both Korean and multiethnic churches view their congregations as places that help them get involved with community service. In particular, they look to their churches for specific models of how to interact with their local community. Those in multiethnic churches are more individualistic while those in Korean American churches are more communally-oriented. Surprisingly, Korean Americans in multiethnic churches complete more individual acts of community service.

This chapter outlines one potentially useful yet, to date, virtually unexamined practical public health application of the research on the health benefits of volunteerism — the involvement of primary care physicians as volunteerism advocates. There are several reasons that physicians may be effective volunteerism advocates. First, volunteering tends to drop off after age sixty-five, at the precise time when its health benefits have been shown to be the most pronounced and when doctor visits are frequent. Second, studies have shown that older adults in particular are receptive to health advice from their physicians. Last, physicians have been effective advocates for increased physical activity in older adults, and involvement in volunteering may actually be easier to achieve, given the resistance of much of this population to exercise programs.

This chapter explores the interrelationships among volunteerism, religiousness, and health among older adults. It attempts to provide evidence for possible connections between religiousness, spirituality, and volunteerism, as well as for their association with health among older adults. Religiousness and spirituality were significantly correlated with an array of mental health indicators, most consistently life satisfaction and (freedom from) depression. These associations are consistent with other research that has demonstrated the positive effects of religiousness and spirituality on mental health. The study also finds evidence for the beneficial effects of volunteering on physical health.

This chapter presents research on altruism and health in the context of people living with AIDS. It begins with a review of the literature on AIDS patients who volunteer to help others with the illness. This literature indicates that, as a result of such helping, the volunteers develop a positive sense of self, increase safer sex behaviours, and feel at greater peace with regard to their own future deaths. It then turns to the chapter's own research on a group of seventy-nine long-term survivors of AIDS (people who have survived twice as long as expected), who were compared with a group who had AIDS with a normal course of the illness. The long survivors were significantly more likely to have engaged in AIDS volunteerism and had significantly less depression, anxiety, and perceived stress. In a subsequent study on the psychological predictors of slower disease progression, the chapter again notes that volunteering, giving to charities, and expressing caring for others are related to better prognosis in AIDS and to less emotional distress.

This chapter explores an association between volunteering and health. It proposes and tests a theory focused on self-initiated volunteering, that is, volunteering which is done by someone who has not been asked to do the volunteering. It is hypothesized that people who engage in this type of volunteering will reap greater mental health rewards from that activity than those who volunteer after being asked to do so. The chapter proceeds as follows. The first part reviews the literature on volunteering and mental health and then discusses how self-initiated volunteering should fit into this framework. Next, it tests expectations using a newly collected data set that contains extensive measures of volunteering and mental health. It concludes with a discussion of findings and what future research might do to further knowledge in this domain.

This chapter traces the history of philanthropy and shows the extent to which it is woven into the very fabric of the American entrepreneurial experiment. In order to understand philanthropy as a viable system for recycling wealth and creating opportunity, it is worth probing the dynamics that have sustained philanthropic giving and the conditions under which it has prospered and wavered. After providing a historical background on philanthropy in the United States, the chapter considers the Giving Pledge, an idea put forth by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that commits billionaires to give away one-half of their wealth in their lifetimes. It then looks at the origins of American generosity, along with volunteerism, associations, and self-reliance. It also discusses mass philanthropy, the welfare state and the persistence of philanthropy, political philanthropy, and the rationale behind philanthropy and charity.

Development undertakes a process that involves only two vital institutions—the market and the government. It is argued that this notion should be expanded to incorporate and acknowledge the contributions of civil society. With the existence of non-governmental organisations that promote non-profit and voluntary endeavours, the observation of human rights, the materialisation of labour standards, and the pursuance of mutual benefits through cooperation will be possible. Considering these premises, the phrase civil society must be termed as civil economy, which is formed by the majority's decision. Although it is observed that the recurring phase of development among various countries is different from these perceptions, the chapter strongly reflects that the present generation is in need of heightened collective decision making processes and increased cooperative ventures.

Evidence suggests that volunteerism and activism in GLBT and AIDS organizations and communities are protective against sexual risk and substance use. Yet, the mechanisms by which community involvement is protective are poorly understood, particularly in Latino gay, bisexual, and transgender (GBT) populations. This chapter researches four potential mediators of the association between community involvement and safe sex: self-esteem, social support, safe sex peer norms, and safe sex self-efficacy. Results showed that community involvement in GLBT or HIV/AIDS organizations was positively associated with social support, peer norms, and safer sex self-efficacy (N = 643 Latino GLBT). Involvement in other causes was not associated with these factors. Safe sex was also predicted by peer norms and safe sex self-efficacy. Thus, promoting naturally occurring activities such as volunteerism and activism as prevention strategies may be more effective, sustainable, and less expensive than structured didactic approaches to sexual risk reduction among Latino GBT.

This chapter focuses on the relationship between the profane and the sacred and views it in the context of a rationalizing and increasingly pragmatic humanitarianism. It notes the changes that have occurred in emergency relief and volunteerism, and studies the response of humanitarianism to the crisis of faith within the humanitarian sector. It summarizes the main tenets of pragmatism, and then considers the shift of the humanitarian sector to rationalization and pragmatism in order to restore its faith in humanitarian action. The final section of this chapter addresses the question of whether faith and a sense of the sacred can survive a pragmatic humanitarianism.

Voluntary citizen participation is often viewed as a meaningful solution to a wide range of societal problems. However, while volunteerism is widely endorsed by individuals from across the political spectrum, citizens' behaviors often fall short of their civically-minded attitudes. Beginning with these premises, this chapter develops a conceptual model to explain voluntary civic behavior, and identifies persuasion strategies that can effectively initiate and sustain voluntary citizen participation. Research suggests that there is great practical potential in employing persuasion strategies that focus on both promoting participation and on overcoming barriers to involvement. These findings have implications above and beyond volunteerism, informing our understanding of persuasion and voting behavior, as well as social movement participation.

Frances (Frankie) Prince is the subject of this chapter, beginning with her early life at summer camp, continuing with her own educational and musical career, and leading to her courtship with and marriage to Schuman. After the wedding, Frankie sought to continue to work outside the home, but her husband eventually asked her to be a stay-at-home wife and mother when they moved to New Rochelle, NY. Frankie responded by volunteering for causes she believed in, causes that tended to be more progressive than those of her fellow homemakers or of her husband. She was Schuman's most trusted friend and confidante, making his discovery of Frances Prince every bit as important in his life as the discovery of classical music.

This chapter argues that a desired outcome of an undergraduate education in psychology should be the development of psychological literacy. Psychological literacy includes skills such as critical thinking, statistical literacy and numeracy, effective communication and the ability to apply psychological literacy to one’s life. The chapter further argues that students should be encouraged to develop into psychologically literate global citizens. This latter concept extends the notion of psychological literacy in that it further emphasizes social responsibility, ethical commitment and the application of psychological literacy at both a community and global level. To illustrate these concepts the chapter discusses how psychological literacy may manifest itself through some of the key social issues facing Canadians today: volunteerism, environmental sustainability, illicit drug use, health care, and multiculturalism and diversity. Methods and examples of how to foster psychological diversity are presented through classroom exercises, case study and curriculum development.

This chapter explains how the Prison Radio Association (PRA) story is driven by the people who instigated and developed the activity. When asked to reflect on what drew them to the idea of prison radio, PRA participants all talk of the potential to change the lives of prisoners, and of a continued commitment to ‘making a difference’. The chapter focuses on the motivations, characteristics, and actions of those involved in the process. It also presents prison radio growth as a product of a wider political and cultural context that has redefined volunteerism, social activism, and cultural production in terms of enterprise and entrepreneurship, in order to support the restoration of social welfare and growth of the knowledge-based economy.

This chapter discusses the importance of maintaining an abundant supply of primary care physicians for the future. A century ago, there was a crisis regarding the quality of medical education. Today, the challenge is about the quantity of well-trained doctors who will opt to provide primary care for an aging American population. This chapter considers some of the factors that limit physician supply, including the macroeconomics of growth. It also proposes three approaches to expand the supply of primary physicians: promoting volunteerism among retired doctors, attracting newly trained medical graduates to general medicine, and imposing a government-imposed period of mandatory medical service by young physicians in the delivery of good basic primary care.

This chapter illuminates the construction of caring selves in the work of feeding the urban poor. It develops the idea of moral selving in the context of charitable action and makes clear how structural arrangements guide self-betterment while concurrently individual actions make possible particular structural arrangements. It provides an opportunity to consider how volunteerism, charity, rehabilitation, social movement activism, and welfare provision are not mutually exclusive practices but rather are configured in complicated and often contradictory ways in the context of both the actions of different individuals and the work of different organizations. It addresses how the formulation of moral selving and its particular manifestations at Loaves & Fishes and The Salvation Army fits into social psychological understandings of the emotional self and orientation of the self, as well as the feminist literature on the caring self. Furthermore, it indicates an intriguing correlation between the moral rhetoric and institutional structure at The Salvation Army, its emphasis on honor, and the predominantly male nature of the volunteer force and their predominantly working-class roots. The Salvation Army, with its resemblance to muscular Christianity, promised reclaimed manhood through hard work and battle with the evils of the body.

When Barack Obama announced on February 10, 2007 that he would seek his party's nomination for president of the United States, he started by telling his audience how he came to Chicago in 1985. When Obama spoke at Grant Park on November 4, 2008 shortly after the networks announced that he had won the presidential election, he made a point of thanking his organisers in the field. He emphasised that his campaign was at heart a grassroots effort, begun ‘in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston’ and funded primarily by small donors. The election did not end the importance of volunteerism and grassroots organising. Obama extended the spirit of community organising to the challenges facing the nation by calling for a ‘new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice’. To underscore the importance of continuing the grassroots work that had been so vital to his victory, the campaign organisation, Obama for America, changed its name to Organising for America days after Obama was inaugurated.

This chapter assesses how the actions of volunteers reflect the ramifications of karmic framings of care in the contemporary civic landscape. Volunteers form the backbone of the Thai government's social welfare plan for their aging society. However, although volunteers have been vital to public health efforts in the country for decades, there is still a sense among many Thai people that volunteering is a foreign concept. Something about what volunteers do, and why they do it, is marked as “other.” At the same time, progressive social actors—including those very same organizations working for change in end-of-life care in the country—are promoting a “new” orientation to volunteering in which personal motivations and pro-social action offer a civic engagement route to making merit. In this way, the “spirit of volunteerism” is reclaimed as essentially Thai. The chapter then takes a close look at who does what in the name of volunteerism. In the civic landscape, volunteer programs help reveal the antecedents of that which is most important in care relationships at the interpersonal, group, and national levels. The chapter argues that power struggles over what counts as beneficial action may obscure a common and enduring ethical map, based on merit and karma in a hierarchical worldview, which continues to guide volunteer work and civic action in many forms.

This chapter takes a look at some novels by Charlotte Smith that situate the victims of mercenary marriage in the midst of characters who write and fight for money. It studies these works to shed some light on the kinship between eligible young women and unaffiliated mercenaries. The chapter examines the French and British old regimes' use of mercenary forces and the support of the anti-Revolutionary patriarchy for marriages formed by harsh mercenary husbands and parents. It shows a dichotomy between the voluntaristic associations of the opponents of mercenaries and the mercenary structures of the anti-Revolutionaries. The chapter also considers the complications raised by the novels with the celebration of Revolutionary volunteerism.

Little is known about how parental fundraising and volunteerism shape family-school relations and, specifically, norms and practices related to parent engagement within particular school contexts. This chapter addresses this issue by examining the scope and consequences of middle-class parents’ school-improvement efforts at a public elementary school. Although parents brought new resources and educational opportunities to the school, the chapter shows how their engagement through the Parent-Teacher Organization, and the school’s reliance on their contributions, engendered tensions and exacerbated existing status positions among parents. Based upon these findings, the chapter argues that there are limits to relying upon middle-class parents to sustain school funding and educational opportunities. A reliance on these parents may not only privilege middle-class norms of engagement in school settings, but also relieve the state of its responsibility to provide and ensure high-quality public schooling for all children.