The new spirit of volunteering in the age of internet - Exploring Swedish nonprofits online volunteer affiliation

Abstract

This study links together the question of how nonprofit organizations use their internet websites to affiliate potential volunteers, with the question of how volunteering has transformed over the past decades. Previous volunteer research suggests that volunteering is getting more individualized and flexible and that volunteer organizations adapt by creating more enabling volunteer approaches. Internet is playing a large role in this “re-embedding” of volunteering. It is unclear how resilient Swedish civil society has been to such changes, therefore, the study explores these developments by researching ten Swedish volunteer organizations websites between 1998 and 2018 using the Wayback Machine. The theoretical framework expands upon Leslie Hustinx Beckian concept of institutional individualization by supplementing it with Wendy Browns’ Foucauldian concept of neoliberal governance. The study identifies four main practices of volunteer affiliation that remains over time, but also identifies a shift in how these practices are being framed; from a movement-oriented framing to an agreement-framing where volunteering is seen much more like a transaction. The study concludes that a new volunteer subject risks being constructed via this new approach to volunteer affiliation. This new volunteer subject would be more individualized, flexible, marketized and entrepreneurial. The space of volunteering seems to be transforming towards a marketplace and Swedish nonprofits might need to reevaluate what kind of volunteers they are seeking to affiliate.