Beyond Just Being There: An Examination of the Impact of Attitudes,Materialism, and Self-Esteem on the Quality of Helping Behavior in Youth Volunteers

ABSTRACT

Young people represent a strong and growing source of volunteers for not-for-profit organizations (NPO) and are an important focus for NPO marketing efforts. Using helping behavior theory, this paper reports a study conducted with a sample of teenagers to examine influences on their decision to volunteer and their goal setting for fund-raising. The relationship between three individual variables (attitude toward the organization, self-esteem, and materialism) and the quality of helping behavior provided was found to be mediated in large part by attitude towards the actual volunteering task. Implications for NPO marketing and future research are discussed.