Motivations of Community Organizations for Service-Learning

In this chapter, the authors first explore the difference between volunteers and service learners and the extent that such differences matter to community organizations. Then, they examine the complexities of nonprofit staff motives to work with service learners through a discussion of the different types of motives that respondents expressed. While the authors classify four types of motives in this chapter, many organizations declared more than one motive or overlapping motives. These four motives are: the altruistic motive to educate the service learner; long-term motives for the sector and the organization; the capacity-building motive; and the higher education relationship motive. Lastly, they discuss how community organization staff balance their concerns about service-learning with their motivations to participate and ultimately decide whether or not to be a service-learning host. (authors)