The effect of NGO leadership on volunteer retention

Volunteers for non-governmental organizations can be difficult to recruit and retain for a number of different reasons. It is, therefore, important to maximize their contributions because NGOs rely on volunteers to assist their staff members to perform the vital operations in order to accomplish the mission of the organization. However, NGOs tend to have limited staff to train and monitor volunteers and often compete with business organizations and other NGOs for the same volunteer workforce. Therefore, retaining a strong reliable group of volunteers saves NGOs valuable time, money, and labor resources that can effectively contribute to the future development of nongovernmental organizations. This study proposed an NGO leadership model to examine the value of integrity and inclusiveness as NGO leadership characteristics that impact the leader/volunteer relationship in terms of volunteer satisfaction and retention. For two months, the study uncovered the vital elements that provided volunteers with satisfying experiences that promoted the retention of volunteers in NGOs in the Southern California area. One hundred and forty one volunteers responded to a survey that measured perceived leadership integrity, inclusiveness, volunteer satisfaction, and volunteer retention in NGOs. Thirteen structured in-depth interviews were also conducted with current and former volunteers in order to examine their experiences, perceptions, and observations about the leadership characteristics under examination. Quantitative and qualitative methods collected data for analysis to address the five research questions and hypotheses in order to determine the relationships between: (1) leadership integrity and volunteer satisfaction, (2) leadership inclusiveness and volunteer satisfaction, (3) volunteer satisfaction and volunteer retention, (4) leadership integrity and volunteer retention, and (5) leadership inclusiveness and volunteer satisfaction. Only three of the hypotheses were supported through correlational analysis, and further supported through qualitative analysis. Two hypotheses were quantitatively unsupported but qualitatively supported. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the NGO leadership Model and revealed that Inclusiveness was a better indicator of volunteer Retention than Integrity and Satisfaction. Key words: Leadership integrity, leadership inclusiveness, volunteer satisfaction, volunteer retention