What makes people volunteer to help the environment? The obvious answer is “because they care about nature.” Realistically, this is a no more than a romanticized notion and assumes that people’s concern for the natural world provide them with enough drive to leave their couch. I explored practical ways in which I could actually get people to come to and continue to attend meetings for our group project.
First and foremost, once our group has organized and chose public meeting times, there must be refreshments. Believe it or not, food is a huge incentive for college kids to attend meetings and a nice reward for everyone to enjoy. Having food to eat at the end of a meeting also facilitates social interaction between members. Part of this portrays expectancy theory, people often expect food as reward for their time and service; but this also fills Maslow’s third tier in the hierarchy of needs. It is safe to assume that most people who are volunteering have free time, and don’t have to worry about having food or feeling safe and sheltered (the first two levels). The third layer of Maslow’s needs is belonging, or friendship. Besides food to share, there are other ways we could make our group’s new members feeling comfortable and accepted; feeling like a part of the group is key to keep people wanting to return. One way to accomplish this is to play a “name game” at the beginning of meetings to help members learn each other’s names, and therefore increase comfort and interaction.
Another way to motivate people to volunteer is to make the project seem important. A big factor in convincing people to volunteer is recognition, or social gratification. This boils down to having something to show off once you have volunteered. Our group could organize to plant trees or to build birdhouses. For our first meeting, I am considering contacting the local press; having a reporter write and publish a short article about Glassboro’s up-and-coming environmental activism group would be great publicity, and incentive for the public to come join. The same motivation (and group pride) could also come from a vendor fair highlighting eco-friendly businesses, services and products locally. Fun, personal enjoyment, would act as a major motivation if the right message were sent to potential members.
We could also host friendly competition within our volunteerism. Bird counting could be made into contest, seeing who could identify the most species in the time allotted. The prize would be negligible, something like Spit Balls (which are fun to play with but also a useful for planting) or a simple group acknowledgement. This kind of contest highlights expectancy theory well, that people will do something with the expectation of an appropriate reward.
A simpler form of incentive, which would also excellent for team building, would be to give members matching T-shirts or caps. It would build unity within but also entice outsiders with the promise of belonging (Maslow’s Third Level) or material gain. We would certainly be a sharp-looking group in our Courier-Post cover shot. - Courier-Post newspaper http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=towns12&county=glouco&tcode=13838
- Spit Balls http://www.scientificsonline.com/polymer-spit-balls.html
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm
- Expectancy Theory http://www.uri.edu/research/lrc/scholl/webnotes/Motivation_Expectancy.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment