Segmenting Subgroups of Volunteers for Target Marketing: Differentiating Traditional Hospice Volunteers from Other Volunteers

SUMMARY

The research objective was to investigate if hospice volunteers could be differentiated from other volunteers using determinant variables from multiple conceptual domains (i.e., personality variables, social/lifestyle variables, demographic variables, and terminal values). Another purpose was to determine if higher performing hospice volunteers could be differentiated from lower performing hospice volunteers.

Lifestyle, demographic, personality, social influence, and terminal value measures were obtained from a sample of 63 hospice volunteers and 950 volunteers from other organizations. Survey respondents were derived from over 40 nonprofit organizations in two Midwestern cities.

In comparing hospice volunteers to volunteers serving in other types of organizations, hospice volunteers are differentiated by 11 determinant variables. One demographic variable (age), one social/lifestyle variable (the number of organizations to which the volunteer donates time for), and one personality variable (self-esteem) were significant. The remaining eight significant predictors of hospice volunteering were values.

An aspect of performance examined in this study is the average monthly hours hospice volunteers serve in their organizations. Because volunteers may serve in either single or multiple organizations, multiple analyses were performed using three different dependent variables (time volunteered in all organizations, time volunteered in primary organization, and number of organizations for which volunteer serves).