“Show of the heart” volunteer recruitment and retention campaign.

Show of the Heart (SOTH) is a grounds-up initiative to create an effective and influential grassroots network amongst youth and young adult volunteers, with the ultimate goal of encouraging committed volunteers. Based on the literature and formative research, we defined a committed volunteer as one who is both selfless and willing to give of his or her time on a regular basis of at least one to two occasions a month.We crafted a volunteer recruitment and retention campaign by adapting Bussell and Forbes’ (2003) volunteer life cycle model with Hendrix and Hayes’s (2010) ROPE public relations process for problem solving. This was achieved in collaboration with several homes and hospices: HCA Hospice Care, Society for the Aged Sick and Kheng Chiu Loke Tin Kee Home. A training workshop was conducted at HCA Hospice Care to equip volunteers for a series of home visits, where they were able to put what they had learnt into practice. The workshop encouraged a confident mindset amongst the volunteers, thus helping to alleviate their hesitance and reducing subconscious cognitive barriers with regard to the elderly. The volunteers benefitted from a positive learning experience and expressed their willingness to continue volunteering in the future.Bachelor of Communication Studie