Voluntary Participation in Community Economic Development in Canada: An Empirical Analysis

1. Voluntary Participation in Community Economic Development in Canada: An Empirical Analysis by Laura Lamb (2011)

2. Background • Approximately 1200 CED organizations in Canada (2006) • Federal & Provincial governments have come to recognize importance of CED • Provide varying levels of support

3. Background • Research expected to be useful for public policy makers & CED practitioners • Public policy perspective: • voluntary participation in CED organizations may be viewed as a benefit to society by creating output that would otherwise require paid resources.

4. Objective To analyse volunteer motives for CED from an economic perspective. 4 research questions: • What are the determinants of an individual’s decision to voluntarily participate in a CED initiative in Canada? • Are the determinants of voluntarily participate in CED unique as compared to those of volunteering in general?

5. What are the determinants of the amount of time allocated toward voluntary participation in a CED initiative in Canada? • Are the determinants of time allocated toward voluntary participation in CED different from those of volunteering in general?

6. Definition of participation in CED • voluntary participation in development and housing organizations including: • organizations for community and neighbourhood, economic development • social development • housing associations • housing assistance • job training programs • vocation counseling and guidance • vocational rehabilitation (International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations)

7. Role of participation in CED • Participation is vital to ensure that initiatives respond to the needs and capacities of the community as expressed by the community itself. • CED organizations play an important role in mobilizing citizen engagement and volunteer contributions in communities (2002 survey)

8. Participation Challenges • Attaining sufficient levels of participation is often challenging • Marginalized communities suffer from a lack of community cohesiveness, commitment, and transience. • Community organizers play a role in mobilizing people to act for their own interest • Community collective action

9. Economic Theory • Rational choice theory • a rational individual will make the decision to participate if the net benefits are positive and will continue to volunteer time until the marginal net benefits equal zero. • Volunteer labour supply theory • explores, identifies, and categorizes the motives behind volunteering.

10. Defining benefits & costs • Benefits • Private benefits • Public benefits • Costs • Opportunity costs (time)

11. Private benefits • Consumption benefits • satisfaction derived from the “warm glow” feeling of doing something good, the achievement of a desired degree of social status, satisfaction from the work carried out, or the fulfillment of social or ethical norms • Investment benefits • motivated to gain exchangeable benefits such as increasing job opportunities through the acquisition of skills, experience, and contacts

12. Public benefits (based on public goods model) • Motivated to increase the supply of the public good, and thereby obtain an altruistic benefit. • motivated by a sense of moral obligation prescribed by her (his) own set of values. • the common economic view of pure altruism is that it either does not exist at all or at best is very rare

13. Socio-economic factors • age • education • Income • the presence of children • immigrant status • religious activity • donation activity • social capital

14. The empirical model Pced= F (A, C, I, T, S) P: participation A: altruistic benefits C: consumption benefits I: investment benefits T: time costs of participation S: socio-economic factors

15. Hced= F (A, C, I, T, S) H: # hours of participation

16. Measurement of variables • Private Benefits • Investment benefit • Student status • Self-employment status • Company policy to encourage volunteering • Consumption benefit • Asked to volunteer

17. Measurement of variables • Public Benefits • Altruism /consumption • Age 55 + • Informal volunteering

18. Measurement of variables • Time cost variables • Presence of children • # hours of paid employment

20. Results – Participation Model • Children (+) • Hours worked (-) • Age (+) • Donations (+) • Consumption benefit: • asked (+) • retired (+) • Altruistic benefit: • informal volunteering (+) • Investment benefit: • student (+) • employer policy (+) • Self-employed (+) Significant variables!

21. Results – Hours Volunteered Model • Hours worked (-) • Post-sec. educ (-) • Consumption benefit: • asked (+) • Immigrant status Significant variables!

22. Results summary • Results support economic theory • Likelihood of participation is positively affected by consumption & investment benefits, and may be positively affected by altruistic benefits. • Likelihood of participation is negatively affected by the number of hours spend working for pay. • Likelihood of participating is positively affected by children, an increase in age, & charitable giving.

23. Results summary • Results show some support for economic theory • The likelihood of devoting additional hours to CED is positively affected by consumption benefits. • The likelihood of devoting additional hours to CED is negatively affected by the number of hours spent working for pay.

24. Results- summary • Different determinants for CED & general volunteering: participation model & hours devoted

25. Public policy implications • Government might develop programs for the purpose of increasing private & public benefits to stimulate more participation in CED activities. • Government policy to improve success rate of CED projects • Tax incentive for volunteer participation.

26. CED policy implications • Inform strategies to increase participation • Increase private benefits • Providing recognition for contributions • Match volunteer to task providing private benefit • Consumption benefit • Investment benefit

27. Future research • Better data • CED participation • Measurement of altruistic benefit & consumption benefit • Additional variables • leadership • Probability of success of participation