'I wanted to meet the needs of the people’: Exploring volunteers' accounts of their participation

This thesis explores the personal accounts of volunteers within a range of volunteer organisations in Yorkshire. An attempt to understand the influences and behaviour of volunteers has been studied for decades by researchers from the fields of psychology, economics and sociology. The purpose for undertaking this research was based on the knowledge that whilst there is a significant amount of literature focusing on volunteers and volunteering, there appeared to be a gap of empirical qualitative research focussing on the personal accounts of volunteers. This research consisted of semi-structured interviews with fourteen formal volunteers. The sample for the study was chosen based on a purposive sampling technique, allowing for specific characteristics of individuals to be chosen. The findings from the interviews highlighted that religion is constructed play an important factor in why people volunteer. Religion played an important role in the lives of many of the participants in the research and they all linked their religion to their voluntary work. Whilst religion emerged from the findings as being an important influence to volunteers so did age and family and it was these factors that also distinguished between the choices of volunteer organisations.