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THE JOURNAL OF SOCIAL POLICY STUDIES_
ЖУРНАЛ
ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ
ПОЛИТИКИ •••
ARTICLES IN ENGLISH
Svetlana Sablina, Aleksandr Trusevich, Natalia Kapliy
EXPLORING VOLUNTEERS' MOTIVES
BEFORE AND DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The volunteer movement has always been one of the most reliable tools, both for ongoing assistance to those in need and in emergency situations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the motives for volunteering in Russia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research uses postmodern theories to examine the motives of community volunteers. The motives were gauged based on the retrospective reflections and justifications provided by the volunteers. The research question is: How do the volunteers describe, perceive, and justify the motives for (non)participation in formal and informal volunteering before and during the COVID-19 pandemic? In this qualitative study, narrative interviews were conducted with Russian volunteers (25 in 2019 and 30 in 2021). The transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. We revealed the authentic voices of volunteers and gained a deeper understanding of the wide range of volunteer motivations, not only altruistic but also pragmatic, that were able to withstand the short-term impact of the pandemic. This study showed that "pandemic" volunteering can be ad hoc and integrated into people's everyday lives. The study revealed some new nuances in the motives for (non)participation that are more relevant to the pandemic and can be identified as context-specific
Svetlana Sablina - Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Vice Rector, Assoc. Prof., Department of Sociology, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation. Email: sablina@nsu.ru
Aleksandr Trusevich - MA (Sociol.), Assist. Prof. Department of Sociology, Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation. Email: spase1818@mail.ru
Natalia Kapliy - PhD in Instructional Systems, Learning Architect, Area9 Lyceum, Copenhagen, Denmark. Email: natalia.kapli@gmail.com
© Журнал исследований социальной политики. Том 21. № 4
functions of volunteering. The study also provides an example of a methodological approach useful for examining the motives of volunteers, particularly in, but not limited to, the context of a pandemic or a crisis.
Keywords: postmodernism, volunteering, COVID-19 pandemic, motive, qualitative research
DOI: 10.17323/727-0634-2023-21-4-709-722
Volunteering as a tool to promote the self-realization of an individual and volunteers' motives before the COVID-19 pandemic has been the subject of investigation for researchers from different countries (Forbes, Zampelli 2014; Pavlova, Silbereisen 2014; Mousa, Freeland-Graves 2017; Darley 2018; Milbourn et al. 2019; Russell et al. 2019). The ever-present need for volunteer help increases significantly in times of natural, man-made, and social crises, when it is necessary to find solutions at both local and national levels, depending on the scale of the crisis (Ludwig et al. 2017; Simsa et al. 2019; Anghel, Grierson 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic is a natural 'experiment' whose magnitude has increased the demand for social assistance and support around the world. Existing studies of volunteers focus on new styles of volunteering: virtual and hybrid (Kulik 2021; Lachance 2021; Sun et al., 2021), contextual determinants of motivation (Heyerdahl et al. 2021), the emergence of local solidarity (Bertogg, Koos 2021), community emergency volunteering (Lai, Wang 2022), and imposed volunteering (Andersen et al. 2022).
Volunteerism is influenced by a variety of motivational factors. In response to COVID-19, medical volunteering has become widespread (Pickell et al. 2020). Medical students engaged in volunteer services are more likely to be motivated by professional values, duty, altruism, and perceptions of good performance (Ali et al. 2021; Bazan et al. 2021; Chawlowska et al. 2021; Tempski et al. 2021; Büssing et al. 2022). International student volunteers were largely influenced by intrinsic-altruistic motives (Kifle Mekonen, Adarkwah 2021). According to Mak and Fancourt (2022), the predictors of volunteering during the pandemic may be slightly different from other non-emergency periods. Currently, there is no systematic and scientific qualitative research comparing the motives of volunteers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The significant gap in previous literature motivated the research team to conduct this study using Russia as an example. People volunteer worldwide, but who volunteers and how people volunteer varies from country to country (Mateiu-Vescan et al. 2021). Although the findings may be more relevant in the former soviet context, the use of a qualitative approach is necessary to understand the perceived and justified motives of the volunteers.
As COVID-19 continues to impact our lives worldwide, the results of this study are of interest to government agencies and nonprofit organizations in the area of crisis response (Trautwein et al. 2020). There is 'formal' volunteering, i.e., to an organization, and 'informal' volunteering, i.e., volunteering carried out individually outside of an organizational context (Lee, Brudney 2012). Hence, we focused on the
following research question: How do the volunteers describe, perceive, and justify the motives for (non-)participation in formal and informal volunteering before and during the COVID-19 pandemic? In the absence of prior knowledge, we tested the research question in an exploratory manner and did not formulate hypotheses.
Volunteering: Relationship between individual and society in the postmodern world
This research uses theories of postmodernity to examine the motives of community volunteers. One of the characteristics of individualization in postmodern society is both the strengthening of rational activities by individuals and the formation of social morality based on responsibility for others and solidarity with others who are in difficult life situations (Bauman 2001). As Bauman (2001) notes, there is nothing 'rational' about taking the responsibility to care for others and being a moral person in general. The relationship between the individual and society becomes more complex in the postmodern world. According to Elias (1991), people in postmodern society form a web of interdependence that binds them together. This web is called a 'figuration', which is a structure of mutually oriented and interdependent people who use it to meet their needs, solve problems, and seek answers. On the one hand, figurations allow each person to express their individuality. On the other hand, through the figuration, individuals feel connected to society; the actions of one individual are intertwined with the actions of others, and their collective actions have a common vector.
Guided by this postmodernist framework, volunteering is understood as a 'figuration' (Elias 1991) formed by interdependencies between individuals, allowing 'helpers' to express their individuality while contributing to a common goal in the local community as well as in society.
The 'reflexive project of the self' (Giddens 1991) helps to understand the role of the individual in the 'figuration.' It places greater emphasis on the individuals' self-identities, their own interpretations of their experiences, and their developmental trajectories. For this reason, when researching the motives of volunteers, the greatest attention is paid to reflection, i.e., the moment when people reassess their actions and test their coherence, as well as the situations of evaluation and disapproval of their own actions and those of others (Boltanski, Teveno 1991). The potential for reflection is particularly interesting when it comes to new volunteering practices in the wake of a pandemic. These practices are developing faster than researchers are able to reflect on them.
Research methodology
The pandemic calls for unconventional methods of recruiting informants and conducting interviews. This study used the Internet for qualitative research, including social networks (Markham 2010).
Research participants were recruited using convenience sampling. Two recruiting methods were used to find potential informants: requests for participation were posted on the social networks 'VK.com' and 'Instagram,' and, additionally, snowball sampling was used when, at the end of the interview, the informant was asked to recommend other potential participants. This strategy allowed for crossing both geographical and social boundaries and proved to be more effective than searching for participants mainly through personal contacts. A considerable amount of time was spent communicating with potential participants: explaining the objectives of the study, how the data would be used in general terms to ensure confidentiality and anonymity, and so on. Twenty-five interviews were conducted with volunteers in the spring of 2019, resulting in 7 male and 18 female participants between the ages of 18 and 52. At the time of the survey, all informants lived in Novosibirsk. Thirty interviews with volunteers were conducted in December 2021, resulting in 13 male and 17 female participants between the ages of 21 and 51. At the time of the survey, the informants lived in different cities (Novosibirsk, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Kemerovo, Perm, and Yekaterinburg). Participants' age, the type of volunteering they engaged in, and their geographic location were not the selection criteria for this study. As a result, the pool of informants included groups of people with different levels of involvement in community volunteering: representatives of both informal and formal volunteering, including volunteers from human service organizations and associations, as well as leaders and curators of volunteer organizations, foundations, or projects.
As Holstein and Gubrium (2000) note, we are witnessing a change in self and a self-articulating society full of images and discourses of who we are and ought to be. Researchers increasingly frame the interview as a symmetric communication in which both parties are necessarily and unavoidably active. Contemporary interviewing style suggests a specific logic of the conversation and a change in the role of the interviewee, who becomes an active, reflective, and competent observer. The conducted research contributes to the development of data collection methods-a narrative interview in a distance mode using Skype, Google Meet, and Telegram. At the beginning of the interview, the interviewer took on the role of the narrator of one's own life story in order to increase the interest in the topic, to inspire the conversation partner, and to ignite their imagination. The interviewer stopped participating in volunteer work because of strong negative emotions. When he told a real story from his own life, he felt comfortable and was open and sincere, which helped build a trusting relationship with the interviewee.
The interviewer tried to avoid the passive role of an informant who only answered questions in a standard interview technique. If the respondent lost interest in the narrative during the interview, the interviewer tried to revive it by exchanging roles.
The interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim to preserve the validity of the data. The names of the participants were removed to protect anonymity (e.g., 'P1, 2019' stands for 'Participant 1, interviewed in 2019').
The transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis in accordance with the guidelines of Braun and Clarke (2006). The first stage of the analysis identified specific situations and events within each interview that were meaningful to the informant. This allowed us to see how participants described formal and informal volunteering at different stages of their lives. After the initial set of codes was determined, we looked for consistent and recurring patterns of meaning across interviews. Potential themes were then identified, verified, and cross-referenced with quotes from the interviews (Braun, Clarke 2006). This multi-stage analysis allowed us to explore volunteers' motives before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in their retrospective reflection and justification. All researchers were involved in data analysis to ensure consistency, transparency, and triangulation of findings. Combining the interpretations of results obtained by co-authors helped to avoid researcher bias.
Research findings
Informal and formal volunteering: the universal nature and uniqueness of volunteers' motives
All of the informants involved in the study had experience helping strangers in their daily lives or as part of a volunteer organization.
Regardless of the context of the pandemic, helping people outside of the framework of an organization is often situational and spontaneous, and integrated into people's daily lives. The majority of informants believe they help those around them 'as they go' - unconditionally, as a habit, without consideration of time, effort, or emotion. . The behavioral models of parents and relatives, internalized in the process of socialization, are present in the respondents' discourse as a justification for their actions. This observation is consistent with the research conducted by van Goethem et al. (2014), who found that parents' experience with volunteering increased the likelihood of their children's involvement in volunteer activities.
My parents taught me that we should help people. (P11, 2019)
It's almost like impulsive behavior... I do it on a case-by-case basis, which means I see someone who needs help and I help. I think that's how I was brought up - to always help. (P3, 2021)
The willingness to help strangers in need is not only the result of upbringing but also the result of rational thinking and an understanding of the need for a 'social contract': ''It will be paid back anyway at some point; that's the boomerang effect' (P1, 2019).
There are two behavioral models that have emerged from the volunteers' reflections: a small number of people are 'givers.' They help a stranger without expecting anything in return, and they derive satisfaction from the process itself.
They act out of pure altruism; the main reason for their behavior is the desire to help people who are in difficult situations. The majority of volunteers 'exchange' help: they help a stranger to improve the social environment in which they will receive help themselves if necessary: 'Treat people like you would want to be treated yourself. I think it's important to help people, even if you don't know them, because you might end up in a difficult life situation yourself (P10, 2021).
Informal volunteering motives
Volunteers' motives are often related to achieving personal goals and meeting individual needs. Based on the thematic analysis, three main groups of informal volunteers' motives have emerged, which are universal and unrelated to the pandemic nature:
1. Self-actualization, the pursuit of self-development, and the enhancement of self-esteem. When a person takes on responsibility and helps others, he or she gets satisfaction from 'overcoming oneself.' Besides, it gives them the opportunity to take initiative based on their inner motivation and their own desires: Once you've done it, you have this good feeling inside that you have overcome... a mental trap' (P8, 2019).
2. Receiving emotional feedback: satisfaction, energy boost, happiness, pleasant emotions, elevated mood, and recipient gratitude. Volunteers' emotional state is an integral part of their experience and reflects both positive and negative feelings. Positive feedback motivates us to provide assistance in the future, even though being immersed in difficult life situations with strangers suggests stepping out of our comfort zone. Negative reactions to help from some recipients also have a positive impact by developing resiliency, tolerance, and emotional maturity in volunteers.
Gratitude is important to me, and it is important for me to hear a 'thank you' in
return. It's like a personal need; I want to be recognized for my help (P5, 2019).
I am very much a 'giving' person, who feels a burst of energy by giving oneself
to others... this energy transforms some kinds of emotions (P22, 2021).
3. Fulfilling ambitions, feeling a part of the whole, a sense of being needed: 'It's very important not just to live your life but to leave some kind of mark. if I help, I can leave a mark (P20, 2021).
Thus, engagement in informal volunteerism is, firstly, conducive to expressing one's individuality and meeting important needs; secondly, it maintains public morality that is based on mutual responsibility in the local community; and thirdly, it forms the network of invisible connections between mutually oriented and interdependent people who are united by the purpose of supporting and helping those in need.
Expressing the individuality of informal volunteers, who are acting in accordance with their own interests and, at the same time, helping others is important for the development of the potential social basis for formal volunteering. It prepares them for engagement in large-scale projects led by organizations.
Involvement in an organization's activities helps to expand the practices of helping people in need; it is an opportunity to respond to a new challenge, to try new types of activities, and to realize the usefulness of these activities within the local community and beyond.
Formal volunteering motives
Formal volunteers are generally guided by the same main motives as informal volunteers, but the spectrum of their motives is broadened due to the emergence of volunteer organizations acting as a liaison between the 'helper' and the 'recipient.' The results of the thematic analysis revealed the following additional motives, specific to formal volunteers; these motives are also universal, unrelated to the nature of the pandemic:
1. Accumulation of social capital and an increase in social contacts. Involvement in an organization's projects helps create a 'brotherhood' of like-minded people. Depending on their interests, participants may develop interpersonal relationships and social networks within the organization and beyond.
It's nice to realize that you are. in the company of people who are on the same page with you, and this is what is really missing in our lives right now. There are many people like that; they are uniting. and they get together and socialize outside [of the organization] (P13, 2019).
I wanted to be among people who cared. And I wanted to be part of the community (P3, 2021).
2. Volunteer personal development and new practical skills. The majority of organizations conduct volunteer training to practice the skills necessary for working with different categories of people (children, adolescents, people with disabilities, and elderly people), and so on. Among other reasons for social engagement, volunteers mention gaining new skills that are useful in everyday life; administrators of volunteer activities, projects, and organizations see it as an opportunity to improve their careers.
As in any organization, you grow... raise the level of your knowledge, understanding, competencies, etc. We are self-taught; there are people who have more knowledge and competencies, and they pass this knowledge on to those who just joined (P25, 2019).
We have very strong and unique educational programs. you can't find them in other organizations. when we went through the full training, it was very interesting and very engaging. and people. would come to take these educational programs (P18, 2021).
3. Shifting attention, stress relief, and psychological and physical offloading. In this case, volunteering replaces routine daily activities in the context of an accelerated pace of life, rapidly changing technologies, and increasing individualization and autonomy.
Switching activities helps offload psychologically from the day-to-day worrying, day-to-day stress, and [offload] physically too... it fits into my life seamlessly... into that need for offloading and switching activities that I was missing (P12, 2019).
The findings align with the previous research conducted by Wilson (2000) and Lockstone-Binney et al. (2010), who found that volunteering allowed people to grow personally and socially, cultivate their skills, improve their knowledge, and make new friends.
Regardless of the universal nature of the motives for volunteering, each volunteer has a unique combination that is based on their past and present experiences of formal and informal volunteering. For a local community, it is important to have the complementarity of formal and informal volunteering; for participants, it is important to choose such types of service to those in need that fit into their lives 'here and now': People should be presented with a maximum of events and opportunities so they can determine for themselves whether they have the capacity to help, to provide assistance... and to what extent (P2, 2021).
Volunteering in the times of the pandemic: stability of motives
The participants were asked to talk about their past volunteering experiences; starting with the first incident they could remember, about helping during the pandemic, and about their willingness to help strangers in the future. What all informants have in common is not only their experience of helping strangers in the past and/or in the present, but also their readiness to continue volunteering in the future. The stability of volunteers' motives is related to the satisfaction of individual needs in the process of this activity: I've been involved in volunteering for six years now, and I still keep doing that... I will keep helping because it's like part of my life and my lifestyle. Having participated once, you get involved in this field (P8, 2021).
Based on the research findings, the pandemic context did not expand the list of motivations for volunteering. However, short-term instability due to official lockdowns, the shift to full-time or part-time remote work, uncertainty about how restriction scenarios would evolve, and increasing risks for people's physical and mental well-being transformed traditional styles of volunteering and created new types of activities, such as helping in COVID-19 hospitals and call centers, contact-free types of support, and so on. Before the pandemic, volunteering was mainly face-to-face. New styles of volunteering, for example virtual volunteering that takes place through digital means and hybrid volunteering that combines virtual and traditional ones have become safer for both beneficiaries and volunteers. Despite the new styles, they have not significantly changed the nature of volunteering or its motives: People are the same; everything is the same. Nothing has changed... It's just that people are now wearing masks' (P7, 2021).
As the informant's narrative was constructed using a broad time frame, different scenarios of volunteer practice development were discovered:
1. Lack of volunteer experience before the pandemic and the first experience of helping people as part of a volunteer organization during the pandemic.
In 2020, when there was already a pandemic but the main lockdown was over, I came across an ad in the 'VK.com' feed.. .saying that a charity organization. is looking for volunteers, who could deliver groceries to people in need. I wasn't too busy; I was working from home at that time. this was my main volunteering experience (P4, 2021).
In this case, spontaneous volunteering during the COVID-19 pandemic is a form of volunteering in which volunteers arrive at a site of sudden need caused by a crisis in an unplanned, spontaneous, and ad hoc mode (Simsa et al. 2019). Engagement in formal volunteering is a result of the complex intertwining of not only the motives of people, but also environmental conditions and life circumstances. Sometimes the informants learned about volunteer organizations by chance (from the Internet, advertising, or friends) and did not initially plan to participate, but as a result of a series of circumstances, they became involved in volunteering during the social crisis.
2. Existence of informal and/or formal volunteer experience prior to the pandemic, and volunteers continuing their service during the pandemic in the same or new forms with the same or greater intensity.
It was the first wave. and everyone was saying that there was a lack of resources. not enough personnel, not enough doctors, not enough nurses. I started working and volunteering in the 'red zone.' I just wanted to help -I guess a standard motivation (P19, 2021).
In this case, it is a manifestation of a proactive behavioral strategy of 'caring for others' (true altruism, expressed in forms of volunteering, helping a stranger, and charity despite the risk of contracting a coronavirus infection) as the prosocial orientation of Russians during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kislyakov, Shmeleva 2021).
3. Existence of informal and/or formal volunteer experience prior to the pandemic, and volunteers stopping or reducing their service during the pandemic: 'I started helping less during COVID-19 because, in general, people and I stayed inside more... I think during the lockdown there is less interaction between people and less help' (P3, 2021).
The most common reasons given by volunteers for a decrease in activity during the pandemic were personal circumstances. First of all, a recent move and/or job change may have resulted in a lack of time, especially to work in a volunteer organization; secondly, occasional emotional burnout from systematic volunteering requires a period of recovery; thirdly, it may be a conscious balancing of personal or family interests with helping strangers. Health risks during the pandemic are not seen as a significant reason to stop volunteering, suggesting that these are people with low pathogen avoidance motives (Ding et al. 2021).
However, fear of infecting elderly relatives could influence behavioral change, especially during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic: 'I realized the risks because the pandemic has already started, and because of that... I stopped consulting people because it was dangerous for my family. After contacting these people, I didn't visit my family for a month and a half' (P18, 2021).
Of particular interest were the situations of reflexive reconsideration and justification (Boltanski, Teveno 1991) of actions or lack of actions, both by the volunteer and by others. It is exactly the pandemic-related experience of failure or facing an obstacle that most clearly outlines the models of justification for one's own or other people's behavior:
1. 'Rehabilitation': non-participation in some situations, accompanied by strong feelings or an emotional trail, is compensated by participation (or readiness or planning to participate) in other situations. Sometimes it is necessary to work out existing psychological traumas and achieve harmony in order to help others.
2. 'Lack of balance': non-participation is explained by the possibility of burnout when helping others systematically (not all recipients are grateful; you need to see either the result of your work or some kind of immediate response).
Despite the stability of (non-) participation in informal and informal volunteering in the context of the pandemic, we can observe the strengthening of the paradoxical consciousness of the respondents when it comes to different cases of justification of non-participation. Contradictions in statements were already present in the informants' discourse before the pandemic; however, they became more pronounced under conditions of instability and uncertainty.
a. Justifying one's own or other people's (non-) participation in volunteering. 'I am trying not to help when I am not being asked... I choose not to be indifferent and offer gratuitous help' (P1, 2021).
b. Denying being identified with volunteering while being systematically involved in formal and/or informal activities: 'Now I am spending two weeks of my life helping others, and two weeks on my family and job... I am not a volunteer... in everyday life; you can call me a person who gives their support to those who need it' (P9, 2021).
Barriers to participation in volunteering during the pandemic
As a result of comparing the narratives of two groups of volunteers - before and during the pandemic - we can conclude that during the crisis there is a greater need not for those who 'exchange help,' who meet their needs, but for those who 'give' - who are self-sufficient and willing to share their resources. What these volunteers have in common is a sense of responsibility; the basis of their activity is initiative and desire, and not being forced to act in a socially acceptable way: 'I want to share out of abundance in order to feel full. First, you need to fill yourself up and raise your level to be able to help people increase their capabilities. My "maternal abundance jar" is overflowing, and I can share' (P11, 2021).
The uniqueness of each volunteer's situation is determined by a specific combination of motives for participation and non-participation in formal and informal activities. In order to justify their non-participation, volunteers list the categories of people they do not want to help. These include people with deviant behavior, whose contact increases risks to physical and mental well-being (such as drug addicts or scammers). However, because of some personal characteristics, a volunteer may consciously or subconsciously distance themselves from other groups based on previous, usually unsuccessful experiences interacting with them. In addition, such things as fear, insecurity, self-consciousness, dislike, anger, and other negative feelings toward certain groups of people may serve as barriers to participation, along with a lack of resources (time, emotions, etc.) at a given time.
The context of the pandemic strengthens the justification for non-participation in informal volunteering, which generally requires psychological maturity, resistance to stress, discipline, and the ability to adapt in a team. In times of crisis, the motives for non-participation are primarily related to limited resources: a lack of time to work within the limits of existing projects and/or a lack of funds to implement their own initiatives: 'I was offered to start my own foundation... of a broad spectrum, to help people with limited resources: children with cancer, palliative children, elderly people, or animals... but I don't have the funds' (P9, 2021).
Informal volunteers, when asked about the reasons for their non-participation, cite the need to regularly adapt their daily routines to accommodate the tasks required by the organizations' projects: 'I understand that I might lack emotional or physical capacity to do something when it's needed... that's... responsibility... I might let people down' (P23, 2021).
Discussion and conclusion
As Mao et al. (2021) note, volunteerism is essential to the public response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers play an important role in a crisis situation when government and local services cannot assist everyone who needs help. Volunteer organizations and informal volunteers fill the gap.
Regardless of the context of the pandemic, involvement in volunteering appears to be based on a combination of motives: conscious and unconscious, pragmatic and altruistic. These findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that the structure of volunteering motives is not monolithic (Mousa, Freeland-Graves 2017; Kulik 2021). Before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, two behavioral options, i.e., 'giving' and 'exchanging' help, were possible for Russian volunteers, which is consistent with the research by Kislyakov and Shmeleva (2021). This study revealed that 'pandemic' volunteering could be of an ad hoc nature, becoming integrated into people's everyday lives. This observation aligns with the research by Trautwein et al. (2020) on the unique circumstances of COVID-19 volunteering, namely spontaneous help, everyday tasks, and short-term engagement.
The study also revealed some new nuances in the motives for (non-) participation that are more relevant to the pandemic and can be identified as context-specific functions of volunteering (Lammers et al. 2022). First of all, during the pandemic, there is a shift from the typical 'figuration' of volunteering (Elias 1991), as there is a higher demand for those who can 'give' rather than 'exchange' help. One possible explanation is that, in times of crisis, there are many people in need who do not have the capacity to reciprocate. Secondly, formal volunteering during the pandemic is more difficult for those volunteers who have limited resources or are concerned about their physical or emotional availability. An ad hoc volunteer model may be a more viable solution for these individuals, allowing them to control their level of involvement and avoid burnout.
The study has several limitations: a small sample size, a specific context, and the use of a convenience sample. The study provides new insight into the motives for the participation of people in Russia to volunteer and shows that these motives remain stable in the short-term context of a pandemic. However, the results from a quantitative longitudinal study in the UK revealed some novel predictors during the COVID-19 pandemic (Mak, Fancourt 2022). Future studies are also required to test the hypothesis of the stability of motives for volunteering on a larger scale.
Despite its limitations, the study provides an opportunity to hear the voices of those who carry out new volunteer practices and demonstrates the need for unconventional techniques, such as the use of the Internet as a recruitment tool and site, as well as the transformation of the logic and style of conducting an interview as a response to the changing social reality.
According to Elias (1991), in postmodernity, increasing individualization not only allows the individual to feel free to set goals and act but also strengthens the interdependence of individuals within the local community as well as society. Volunteering becomes an intersection of individual needs and public interests; it is an important asset not only for society but also for the volunteers themselves. As Boltanski and Teveno (1991) note, in the civic world, the value of people is determined by their belonging to a community or their ability to represent the community.
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