Participation, volunteering and the social web
Mapping giving relationships
I’ve been looking at how to make sense of the different kinds of giving relationships when mapping them against personal freedom and social impact.
First, here’s a map of the four types of giving activity that I’ve been looking at particularly: participation, professional amateur, civic engagement and volunteerism.
It’s clear that these activities are closely related if placed on a scale according to two variables: positive personal freedom and beneficial social impact. Activities can be plotted on the x axis according to the extent to which positive personal freedom is the intention of the activity, and on the y axis according to the extent to which beneficial social impact is the intention of the activity.
More information on this here. The box above split into four (simplified below) is an attempt to understand how this ecosystem of different kinds of giving activities fit together. It’s meant to help identify general trends and patterns, rather impose a rigid structure as on the ground the links between the different kinds of giving are many and varied.
The diagram’s weakness is that it generalises and airbrushes a lot of the complexity and diversity within how the giving activities overlap and blend together.
For example, to say the role of the state features heavily on the top left of the map, doesn’t mean the state doesn’t play some kind of role in the bottom right. Or, that fun is a big element of particularly ProAm types of giving activities, doesn’t mean civic engagement isn’t fun. It simply means that fun is generally not as big a driver as is sense of duty to the community or wider society in these kinds of activities.
This is all pretty early ideas which certainly need a lot of developing so any feedback would be really gratefully received 
Social impact and personal freedom
First, let’s look at the top left of the map that really covers mainly civic engagement, a little bit of participation and volunteerism. This is dominated by an aim to cause social impact, influenced by the role of the state and punctuated by many of the rights and responsibilities that we each have as citizens.
On the bottom right of the map, these giving activities are dominated by the giving of the professional amateur, with a smaller proportion of participation and volunteering giving-based activities. Here these activities revolve around the aim to explore personal freedom, play to the rules of free enterprise and are often entrepreneurial in spirit.
Values
In terms of the prevailing values that influence and guide these giving activities in the top left, honour, duty and looking to the social aspects of the giving activity to find meaning in it. If it’s social, the drive and support for the giving primarily comes from without.
In contrast, in the bottom right of the map it’s the allure of the passion, fun and putting your personal sense of self to the test and exploring who you are. It’s personal, the giving comes from within.
Structure
Search for structure to the giving activities comes from an affinity with the structure of work towards the extremes of civic engagement, professional amateurs and volunteering in the top right of the map.
Underlying this are giving activities that are structured more in alignment with leisure. They are looser, less involved and less specialist in appeal. In a way, this represents the division between the formal and the informal parts of the voluntary sector (particularly true in the UK). Many giving activities towards the top right are sponsored by formally constituted and established bodies and organisations.
As well as being informally structured towards the bottom left of the map, the giving activities found here are often much more generic in appeal and loosely defined.
Sectors
There seems to be a clear separation between many of the giving activities in terms of sectors in which they operate. The giving taking place through the middle may have its roots in a mixture of two or more different sectors. Whereas the giving towards the bottom right (ProAm) leans predominantly towards the private sector, the top left (civic engagement) towards the public sector and the top right (volunteering) towards the third sector.
Social psychology
The giving taking place on the map focuses very much on the reciprocity that’s either one-to-many, many-to-one or generalised (see Wikipedia).
One-to-many and many-to-one reciprocity often lies somewhere between direct reciprocal arrangements and generalized reciprocity…
Generalized reciprocity is even less precise. Here donors operate within a large network of social transactions largely unknown to each other, and without expectations about getting specific benefits in return — other than, perhaps, the sort of social insurance provided by the continuance of the network itself.
Giving that is reciprocated one to one as with a financial transaction or within a family is not included in this map of giving activities:
Some reciprocal relationships are direct one-to-one arrangements between individuals, or between institutions, or between governments. Some of these are one-time arrangements, and others are embedded in long-term relationships. Families often have expectations that children will reciprocate for the care they receive as infants by caring for their elderly parents; businesses may have long-term contractual obligations with each other: governments make treaties with each other.
In addition, this map of giving activities only includes that kind of participation of which the giver is actually conscious of.
Giving for the love of it
This map of giving excludes giving that is the result of a formal exchange. Giving included on the map can be reciprocal, where each party is focused on the needs of the other. However, it is not dependent on a legally binding exchange or even an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. A giving relationship often looks to the collective interest and breaks under the weight of a legally enforceable contract.
In addition, the giving activities mapped are done for the love of it, not because they are means to earning a living. It has also meant that the links between ProAm activity and volunteering have been overlooked, because the emphasis has been on what differentiates them, i.e. it’s common for Professional Amateurs to receive money, if only very little, from their giving activities.
The links stem from original reason for the giving in the first place. Just as the original French word amateur suggests, both types of giving are motivated by the love of it.
Varying degrees
Giving activities as they move from participation into volunteering involve increasing responsibility, commitment and ownership for the person giving. Many activities range from giving that can at one end of the scale include attendance, observance and taking part. Right through to the other end, where the giver becomes fully responsible for the activity, that is becomes responsible for the participation of others and for giving over a longer period of time demonstrating commitment.
Coercion and incentives
Giving activities are not mapped if they are primarily due to the profit motive or due to legal compulsion.
Money
In the main, givers only receive out of pocket expenses for their giving activities. However, there are examples where giving is sustained or incentivised with money, but only where it is not the main source of income. This is not the case with volunteering activities and only rarely with participation activities. However, it is much more common with civic engagement and ProAm giving activities.
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