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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.

Community development --- Volunteer workers in community development --- Young volunteers in community development --- Voluntarism --- Community development personnel --- Youth volunteers in community development --- Voluntary action --- Volunteer work --- Volunteering --- Volunteerism --- National service --- Associations, institutions, etc. --- Community House. --- Snowy Prairie. --- adult volunteers. --- bad habits. --- bureaucracy. --- celebrating diversity. --- civic association. --- civic engagement projects. --- civic programs. --- civic skills. --- civic volunteering. --- comfort. --- community empowerment. --- community programs. --- community service. --- crime prevention. --- cultural cleansing. --- cultural diversity. --- cultural preservation. --- cultural tradition. --- culture. --- democracy. --- desires. --- disadvantaged youth. --- distant others. --- distinct cultures. --- diversity. --- divided society. --- empowerment programs. --- empowerment projects. --- empowerment talk. --- everyday routines. --- family-like attachments. --- family. --- food. --- future potential. --- historical transformations. --- hopelessness. --- inequality. --- inspiring volunteers. --- intimacy. --- local grassroots support. --- loyalty. --- mismatched time frames. --- mixers. --- multicultural community. --- multiculturalism. --- needs. --- needy volunteers. --- non-disadvantaged youth. --- nonprofit organization. --- paid organizers. --- plug-in volunteers. --- political engagement. --- politics. --- potentials. --- poverty. --- predictable routines. --- protectors. --- public events. --- safety. --- shared experiences. --- short-term bonds. --- short-term volunteering. --- social diversity. --- social divisions. --- sociological lessons. --- state agency. --- temporal disconnections. --- temporal leapfrog. --- timing. --- transforming volunteers. --- unique cultures. --- unmet needs. --- volunteer coordination. --- volunteer expertise. --- volunteer work. --- volunteering. --- youth participants. --- youth program participants. --- youth programs. --- youth volunteers.