Civic Environmental Stewardship: Aligning Organizational and Participant Motivations

This article details the results of a survey of 165 volunteers attending natural areas stewardship events in the Seattle region with the goal of understanding volunteers’ motivations, satisfactions, and volunteering history. Researchers found that volunteers were motivated and expressed satisfaction for practical altruism, social interactions, experiential learning and a sense of positive impact, and that those who volunteered more frequently had higher satisfaction outcomes. The conclusion of this article provides information that could help improve volunteer engagement including recruitment and retention for organizations that host stewardship events. 

In a nutshell, this resource offers:

• Data on who is attending natural areas stewardship events in the Seattle region, what motivates them to participate in stewardship, and what satisfaction they gained from the experience.
• An in-depth discussion and analysis of environmental steward motivations.
• Suggestions for how to plan and publicize natural areas stewardship events that speak to the motivations and desires of potential volunteers. 

  
  

How to use this resource:

• As a way of better understanding volunteer motivations and takeaways from natural areas stewardship events
• As a source of discussion and examples of how stewardship event organizers might develop stewardship programming for various target audiences, and develop better engagement messaging and in-field experiences for their volunteers

Author: Kathleen L. Wolf, Weston Brinkely, and Dale J. Blahna

Date published: 2021

Point of contact: Kathleen Wolf, Research social scientist, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, kwolf@u.washington.edu  

Citation: Wolf, Kathleen L.; Brinkley, Weston; and Blahna, Dale J. (2021) Civic Environmental Stewardship: Aligning Organizational and Participant Motivations, Cities and the Environment (CATE): Vol. 14: Iss. 2, Article 3.

Resource is available online here.