Models of Volunteer Management: Professional Volunteer Program Management in Social Work

Several trends are leading to increased and broader involvement of volunteers in social work practice. As a consequence, social workers need to be able to manage volunteers in different settings, based on organizational/program factors and characteristics of the volunteers. Contemporary research on volunteer management can be divided into universalistic and contingency approaches. This article presents an overview of leading concepts in both perspectives and offers recommendations for social workers to select appropriate approaches to manage volunteers professionally across different contexts.