Three faces of community volunteering: Informal help, volunteering through organization and virtual activism
Abstract
The book focussed its attention on the fusion of the two phenomena: community and volunteering. The Authors based their concept of community volunteering on the historical survey of community development.
They analyse community volunteering in three lines characterised as 1. informal help, 2. organised work and 3. virtual activism. Each of these lines represents specific face or perspective on the community volunteering and demonstrates specific effect of informal, organized and virtual community on the structure of volunteers and volunteering activities.
This effect is measured through the set of indicators as the extent and intensity of volunteering activities, social and demographic attributes, motivation and social capital of volunteers. The source of empirical data for the analysis the authors derive from the results of the vast quantitative research of volunteering in the Czech Republic which was done by National Volunteering Centre HESTIA in the year 2009.
At the end of the book the authors analyse mutual relations among the three types of volunteering and discuss the questions of societal value of volunteering and the possibility to build "community society" in the Czech Republic.