Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. The distribution of charitable organizations in an equitable and socially just manner is a long-standing policy concern in the United Kingdom and many other jurisdictions. Geographic variations are important as they are linked to potentially inequitable service provision and opportunities for participation in voluntary activities. This study links large-scale administrative data on charities registered in England and Wales with local authority-level measures of material deprivation for 5 U.K. census years (1971–2011). Count and spatial regression models show evidence of nonlinear associations between charity density and social need, and changes in the shape of this distribution over time. In general, charity density is highest in the least deprived local authorities but this varies across different types of organizations and census years. These results provide important new insights into the evolving relationship between charity density and social need, and demonstrate the value of adopting more advanced, longitudinal statistical approaches for studying this phenomenon.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Non-profit organizations, corporate volunteer programs, and government workplace schemes are asking volunteers for their time and effort. But, with the changes in how people volunteer, such as episodic, micro, and cyber volunteering, those managing volunteers need to understand whether they should focus on encouraging volunteers to donate more time or effort. Using public service motivation to measure volunteer’s propensity to engage in volunteering, we compare three outcomes: time spent volunteering, frequency of volunteering, and volunteering intensity. In a sample of 411 volunteers, we find public service motivation is associated with more time spent volunteering, increased frequency, and higher levels of volunteering intensity. However, volunteering intensity explains the most variance. These findings suggest that how the individual perceives they exert volunteering intensity may be useful among public service motivated volunteers.

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Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Ahead of Print. Volunteering has gained momentum in the public sector as a way of maintaining or improving service delivery. Yet, research into public sector volunteering is sparse, including the unique relationship between employees and volunteers and the implications of adding volunteering programs to established structures. Based on ethnographic case study over 9 months with a Fire and Rescue Service in England and a total of 26 interviews with employees and volunteers, we explain tensions between the two groups and how they are played out in everyday practice. In doing so, we extend theory of cooperation and competition by introducing the concept of pseudo employees, or volunteers as employees in the making, which explains both organizational and intergroup mechanisms that set volunteers up to fail, undermining their contribution and the validity of public sector volunteering programs.

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