TY - GEN T1 - Making volunteers : civic life after welfare's end T2 - Princeton studies in cultural sociology. A1 - Eliasoph, Nina LA - English PP - Princeton, N.J. PB - Princeton University Press YR - 2011 UL - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/ebsco_acadsubs_ocn714802993 AB - "Volunteering improves inner character, builds community, cures poverty, and prevents crime. We've all heard this kind of empowerment talk from nonprofit and government-sponsored civic programs. But what do these programs really accomplish? In Making Volunteers, Nina Eliasoph offers an in-depth, humorous, wrenching, and at times uplifting look inside youth and adult civic programs. She reveals an urgent need for policy reforms in order to improve these organizations and shows that while volunteers learn important lessons, they are not always the lessons that empowerment programs aim to teach. With short-term funding and a dizzy mix of mandates from multiple sponsors, community programs develop a complex web of intimacy, governance, and civic life. Eliasoph describes the at-risk youth served by such programs, the college-bound volunteers who hope to feel selfless inspiration and plump up their resumés, and what happens when the two groups are expected to bond instantly through short-term projects. She looks at adult 'plug-in' volunteers who, working in after-school programs and limited by time, hope to become like beloved aunties to youth. Eliasoph indicates that adult volunteers can provide grassroots support but they can also undermine the family-like warmth created by paid organizers. Exploring contradictions between the democratic rhetoric of empowerment programs and the bureaucratic hurdles that volunteers learn to navigate, the book demonstrates that empowerment projects work best with less precarious funding, more careful planning, and mandatory training, reflection, and long-term commitments from volunteers. Based on participant research inside civic and community organizations, Making Volunteers illustrates what these programs can and cannot achieve, and how to make them more effective"--Provided by publisher. OP - 308 CN - HN90.V64 E425 2011eb SN - 9781400838820 SN - 1400838827 SN - 1283009153 SN - 9781283009157 SN - 9786613009159 SN - 6613009156 SN - 9780691147093 SN - 0691147094 KW - Voluntarism : United States : Case studies. KW - Young volunteers in community development : United States : Case studies. KW - Volunteer workers in community development : United States : Case studies. KW - Community development : United States : Case studies. KW - Jeunes bénévoles dans le développement communautaire : États-Unis : Études de cas. KW - Bénévoles en développement communautaire : États-Unis : Études de cas. KW - Développement communautaire : États-Unis : Études de cas. KW - Bénévolat : États-Unis : Études de cas. KW - POLITICAL SCIENCE : Public Policy : Social Services & Welfare. KW - SOCIAL SCIENCE : Human Services. KW - Community development KW - Voluntarism KW - Volunteer workers in community development KW - Young volunteers in community development KW - United States KW - Case studies ER -