What attracts Gen Y and Millennials to Volunteer?

I recently received a review copy of this book and wanted to recommend in response to a question on the progressives list that Andy Oare asked:

What attracts Gen Y and Millennials to volunteer? What sources to go to, what research they can do. Has anyone had any particular success in specific methods of recruiting the Gen Y demographic? Or have any favorite pertaining sources or research groups?

Jane Flemming Kelb recommended a few research sources:

Circle
Pew (perhaps this report?)

Also mentioned:

My experience with young people-the Millennials-is they are more likely to
volunteer if a friend asks them (not a shocker) and they are very much in
tune with volunteering and voting.  They seem to have a resurgence of
civics.

My other on-the ground advice is they respond to messages around the power
of their generation (which will be 30% of the electorate by 2015, its about
22% now) and the connectedness of their generation.

Does anyone else have other sources or bits of wisdom to add?

Comments

[Roger Carr]

Hi Beth,

Thanks for sharing the book recommendation. You can check out my blog post "What Do Youth Volunteers Want?" at http://www.everydaygivingblog.com/2007/10/recruit-youth-v.html

[Sam Thomas]

Hi Beth

Here at YouthNet we found the top motivation for volunteering amongst 16-25 year olds was "to gain work experience or improve my CV" (82%), followed by "to help other people" (73%).

We've also had some success recruiting young volunteers through offering "virtual volunteering" opportunities on TheSite.org here: http://www.thesite.org/chooseaction/virtualvolunteering/searches.

All the best
Sam