Volunteering for Youth: Motivations of Adults Becoming Mentors to Youth

Background and Purpose:

Ensuring the healthy development of all youth, particularly those contending with poverty and discrimination, requires mobilizing adults to actively promote the well-being of young people in their communities. Research shows that a positive relationship with a caring, consistent non-parental adult fosters youth resilience and positive development. Yet relatively little research has investigated what prompts adults to volunteer in youth programs to make meaningful connections with youth. Formal youth mentoring programs provide an opportunity to examine volunteer motivations and the factors that influence them. A general framework for understanding volunteerism contrasts altruistic and self-oriented motives. A mentoring-specific framework for volunteering contrasts wanting to support the development of a youth versus wanting to form a relationship with a youth. While the majority of adults volunteering as mentors come from privileged social and economic backgrounds, a large number of youth in formal mentoring programs are economically disadvantaged and belong to racial/ethnic minority groups. Therefore, volunteer attitudes about poverty and ethnocultural empathy are considered important factors in examining reasons for becoming a mentor. This study asks: Are ethnocultural empathy and attitudes toward poverty associated with reasons adults volunteer to serve as mentors?

 Methods:

Data are from baseline surveys of adults volunteering to become mentors in a nationally prominent youth mentoring program.  A total of 1,287 volunteers were invited to participate in the study, 1,127 consented, and 955 responded to the online survey prior to being matched with a prospective mentee. The demographic variables of interest in the analysis were gender, age, and race/ethnicity. A majority of participants identified as female (62%) and European American/White (70%), and the median age was 28 years (M=32; SD=11). Volunteers’ attitudes and beliefs were assessed with the Short Form of the Attitude Toward Poverty Scale (Yun & Weaver, 2010) and the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (Wang et al., 2003). The Volunteer Motives Scale (Davis, Hall, & Meyer, 2003) measured altruistic and self-oriented motives for volunteering. Finally, the Mentor Motives Scale (Keller, 2004) assessed development and relationship-oriented motives for becoming a youth mentor.

 Results:

In hierarchical regressions for each volunteer motive, demographic factors were followed by measures of volunteer attitudes and beliefs. Females more strongly endorsed each reason for volunteering. Younger volunteers more strongly indicated self-oriented and relationship-oriented motives, and White volunteers indicated self-oriented motives less strongly. Regarding social views, greater ethnocultural empathy was associated with altruistic, development, and relationship-oriented motives. Finally, volunteers who favored structural explanations over individualistic explanations for poverty more strongly endorsed youth development-oriented motives for becoming a mentor.

 Conclusions and Implications:

These findings suggest that ethnocultural empathy and attitudes toward poverty are associated with the motivations of volunteers to become mentors, particularly intentions that focus on supporting the positive development of youth. Shifting community attitudes toward structural understandings of poverty and greater ethnocultural empathy may yield more volunteers willing to actively engage in fostering the healthy development of youth. Further research should investigate how these motivations influence volunteer recruitment efforts as well as volunteer competencies in supporting healthy youth development.