TIME DONATION: FACTORS INFLUENCING VOLUNTEERING

This study had as its general objective to identify the variables that motivate Brazilian individuals to get involved in volunteer work. As the specific objective, we sought to identify what motivates Brazilian individuals to get involved with voluntary work in three different types of organizations: Public/Private Foundations, Religious organizations and charitable organizations. To achieve these goals, a literature review was conducted and 18 variables where identified. These variables indicate the importance of volunteering for individuals and are associated according to their similarity in relation to internal and external factors. The research methodology was descriptive and quantitative, cross-sectional and used primary data. The variables were tested with 321 volunteers from various organizations and data were collected by questionnaires. Data analysis presented the sample characterization and descriptive statistics of volunteers and four multiple linear regressions. Results for the volunteer’s behavior demonstrated that self-esteem and social responsibility are positively associated with attribution of volunteering importance. On the other hand, feeling obligated to volunteer and seeking a better professional image through volunteering are negatively associated with attribution of volunteering importance. For volunteers who donate time for public/private foundations, self-esteem was positively associated and personal obligation was negatively associated regarding the importance of volunteering. As for volunteers providing services for religious organizations, the variable self-esteem was positively associated and the affinity with other donors was negatively associated with the importance of volunteering. Finally, for those donating time to charitable organizations, self-esteem and solidarity were positively associated and personal obligation was negatively associated with the importance of volunteering.


Introduction
The philanthropic sector, represented by organizations from the third sector or non-profit organizations, is one of the sectors that receive the most donations. These donations can be given in different ways, such as blood (PAULHUS et al., 1976;LUDWIG and RODRIGUES, 2005;ZAGO et al. 2010;MEWS and BOENIGK, 2013), breast milk (THOMAZ et al., 2008), organs and tissues (KERRIDGE et al., 2002;NORONHA et al. 2012;TEIXEIRA et al. 2012), or time and money (DUNCAN 1999;WYMER and SAMU, 2002;PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010;BEKKERS, 2010;AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012;MASCARENHAS et al., 2013;CAVALCANTE, 2014). According to Du et al. (2014), donations of money and time are the two most common behaviours. It is likely that many charity organizations would not exist if they did not receive support from donors in terms of time (SCHLEGELMILCH and TYNAN, 1989). Agostinho and Paço (2012) point out that volunteering is an activity which involves many individuals from all age groups, often responsible for keeping organizations running. Agostinho and Paço (2012) define volunteering as an unpaid activity provided to entities or causes with which the donor has no formal obligation. Wilson (2000), in turn, defines a volunteer as an individual who donates his or her time to benefit another person, group or cause. In a similar vein, Grant (2012) states that volunteering comprises the actions of individuals concerned about the wellness of the whole community. Furthermore, volunteering is an activity performed by a considerable number of people around the world. For example, in 2008 in the United States, more than a quarter of the American population donated an average of 52 hours of time to a non-profit entity (PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010). In South America, Brazil is ranked in 12th place for time donation (CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION, 2014). However, organizations that work with volunteers face a complex problem: understanding what motivates volunteers to donate their own time so that they can create mechanisms and strategies to attract and keep these volunteers.
In this context, many researchers have sought to understand volunteers' motivations by examining internal and external drivers (CLARY et al., 1998;DEGLI ANTONI, 2009;CHRISTAUSKAS et al., 2012) and understanding what motivates volunteers to donate their time has become a topic of interest for researchers and professionals nationally and internationally. Owing to Brazil's status in the South American ranking, it is considered relevant to gain a better understanding of Brazilian volunteers' motivations. There are many qualitative studies in the literature that have sought to understand the motivations of specific groups of donors in the Brazilian context (DE SOUZA and DE CARVALHO, 2006;SOUZA et al., 2008;VERVLOET and PALASSI, 2011;CAVALCANTE et al., 2015). Cavalcante et al. (2013) have even proposed a theoretical model for the motivations of volunteers from "Pastoral da Criança".
In the international context, there are also many studies that have sought to understand volunteers' motivations, but again these comprise qualitative studies based on data collected from specific groups of donors (ANDERSON and SHAW, 1999;KIRONDE and KLAASEN, 2002;ANDERSEN, 2003;SLATER 2003;CAISSIE and HALPENNY 2003;HIBBERT et al., 2003). Shye (2010) and Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen (1991), in their turn, sought to comprehend through their research the motivations of volunteers and non-volunteers. Thus, it is apparent that both in Brazil and in other countries many studies have treated of especifc groups of donors. However, only a few of these previous studies have tried to understand general variables that can motivate time donors. In addition, it can also be noted that quantitative studies of the motivations of time donors are uncommon among in studies of volunteering. Therefore, this study aims to answer two research questions: What are the factors that determine a favorable behavior to volunteering? And what are the factors that motivate donors of time from specific groups, such as public/private foundations, religious organizations and charitable organizations? To answer these questions, this study had as its general objective to identify the variables that Brazilian individuals consider important when deciding to participate as volunteers. And its specific objective was to identify the factors that motivate volunteers from specific groups, as time donors to public/private foundations, religious organizations and charitable organizations.
As a theoretical contribution, this study identified the variables that motivate volunteers in general and the variables that motivate three specific groups of donors. The identification of variables associated to volunteering in general contributes to filling a gap in the literature, since most previous studies have sought to understand internal and external characteristics related to specific donors from certain organizations (CNAAN and GOLDBERG-GLEN, 1991;ANDERSON and SHAW, 1999;KIRONDE and KLAASEN, 2002;ANDERSEN, 2003;SLATER, 2003;CAISSIE AND HALPENNY, 2003;HIBBERT et al, 2003;DE SOUZA and DE CARVALHO, 2006;SOUZA, et al 2008;SHYE, 2010;VERVLOET and PALASSI, 2011;CAVALCANTE et al, 2013). It also generated advances in the literature when trying to understand the internal and external motivators of three specific groups of donors (public and private foundations, religious organizations and charitable organizations). Thus, this research presents, as a novelty to the literature, the study of general variables that drive any volunteer and the variables that motivate three specific groups. To this end, we researched donors of different organizations to understand the general drivers and then these donors were analyzed separately in three groups. As a result, any organization that depends on volunteers can use the findings of this research to understand the general internal and external motivators that drive volunteers to donate their time to different types of organizations. And also understand the internal and external motivators of the three specific groups of donors.
In practice, managers of philanthropic entities can use this information to improve the recruitment, selection and retention of volunteers (AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012;PUFFER and MEINDL, 1992;HAGER and BRUDNEY, 2011), as well as to develop communication strategies to attract potential time donors while retaining current volunteers. Another contribution of this research is that it sought general variables for motivation, so it can be used by various charity organizations and also segmented these results in three specific groups of donors.
To achieve the objectives of the study, the paper proceeds as follows. First, the main studies of time donation are reviewed, as are the main internal and external variables posited to influence the general behaviour of time donors. Next, the paper reports on the field research undertaken with 321 volunteers. After addressing data collection, the sample characteristics are analysed and the findings of linear regression of the total group of volunteers and of the three specific groups were presented and discussed. Finally, concluding considerations, the study limitations and suggestions for future research are presented.

Volunteering
According to the literature, volunteering takes time, energy and commitment to provide a service that aims to benefit individuals, groups or society as a whole (LATHAM and PINDER, 2005;DOLNICAR and RANDLE, 2007;AKINTOLA, 2010;PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010;AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012) through social activity in which donors freely give their time in unpaid work (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009). These volunteers are an important resource for many organizations, which compete in attracting and retaining time donors as such volunteers make it possible for organizations to fill social gaps (LAI et al., 2013). Therefore, understanding volunteers' motivations is highly salient.
Although organizations' dependence on volunteer work is not a new issue, the need to recruit and retain time donors continues to increase (PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010) and these organizations face shortages in human and financial resources (SHIELDS, 2009). Thus, such entities need to understand that volunteering can be seen as an exchange between the volunteer and the organization, with the latter as the beneficiary of the work and the former receiving symbolic rewards through psychosocial benefits (VARNER, 1983;GRANT, 2012). Boezeman and Ellermers (2009) state that volunteers are not motivated by monetary incentives, rather they decide to join an organization because of internal and external motivators and these motivators can vary with time, justifying new studies. In other words, motivators are not constant (AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012). Motivations can be diverse and related to altruistic reasons (BUSSELL and FORBES, 2012;KLAVANS and BOYACK, 2014), as well as to potential personal benefits that voluntary work can provide (HIBBERT et al., 2003). Phillips and Phillips (2010) argue that volunteering fulfils individuals' motivations that cannot be met by paid work, based on the fact that the majority of volunteers also have paid jobs.
Factors related to volunteering can be grouped into internal and external classifications for clarity of understanding and ease of analysis. Internal motivators are considered to be intrinsic to individuals, whereas external motivators are those influenced by environmental or social factors (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009;BEKKERS and WIEPKING, 2011). This is the logic used in this study. ISSN 1982ISSN -2596 RPCA | Rio de Janeiro | v. 11 | n. 4 | jul./set. 2017 | 151-174 | 154 According to Agostinho and Paço (2012), understanding the motivation for volunteering is a critical issue for organizations that depend on these individuals. For this reason, many studies have tried to identify and understand what motivates individuals to volunteer (FISCHER and FALCONER, 2001;WYMER and SAMU, 2002;SAMPAIO, 2004;BERGER, 2006;MADRUGA, 2006;MONIZ and ARAÚJO, 2008;BURNS et al., 2008;SOUZA et al., 2010;PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010;MACHADO and PREDEBON, 2011;AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012;MONTEIRO et al., 2012;SOUZA and MEDEIROS, 2012;CAVALCANTE, 2014;KLAVANS and BOYACK, 2014), given that organizations need these services to execute their social activities. Thus, understanding the internal and external factors that favour time donation can help managers improve their processes to better answer donors' needs (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009;WARNER et al., 2011;BEKKERS and WIEPKING, 2011).

Internal Factors that Favour Volunteering
Philanthropic entities depend on volunteers' work to attain their objectives (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009). Moreover, with the increasing focus on the third sector, attracting and retaining volunteers has gained in importance (RANDLE and DOLNICAR, 2012). In view of the fact that these individuals are not paid (AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012), understanding what motivates them becomes even more relevant. Therefore, it is up to organizations to understand the internal factors that influence an individual to volunteer and consequently studies have sought to understand which internal variables drive individuals to donate their time (DEGLI ANTONI, 2009;BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009;WARD and MCKILLOP, 2011;BEKKERS and WIEPKING, 2011). In this context, internal motivators are defined as factors intrinsic to individuals that cannot be influenced by the external environmental (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009;BEKKERS and WIEPKING, 2011).
It is relevant for organizations dependent on volunteering to recognize these driving forces because they have an impact on volunteers' behaviour and analysing personal variables that can influence the decision to volunteer has become important to nonprofit organizations (WYMER and SAMU, 2002) in aiding them to develop campaigns to attract and retain time donors with greater ease. In addition, recognizing the personal characteristics of volunteers is important because it can form the basis for organizations to improve their actions with volunteers (BRYANT et al., 2003) and thereby contribute to the development of a connection between the volunteer and the organization. The establishment of a relationship of fidelity is of great importance for volunteers' motivation as some of them have reported pride in seeing the organization for which they volunteer succeeding. However, this is not the only way to attract and retain volunteers as it is known that some consider voluntary work an obligation (HARRISON, 1995), whereas others donate their time for pleasure, fun or even to be recognized by society (VARNER, 1983).
According to Agostinho and Paço (2012), when considering internal motivators, volunteers can also look especially for psychological benefits and satisfaction, or act out of altruism. However, they can also be influenced by family tradition and other personal characteristics considered to predict volunteering, such as having children, level of income and education and gender. Moreover, Clary et al. (1998), Phillips and Phillips (2010), Latham and Pinder (2005) and Dolnicar and Randle (2007) contend that in donating their time, individuals aim to feel better and gain higher self-esteem. Also, the motivation for time donation can be linked to religion. In other words, a volunteer can feel obligated to help a cause because he or she considers it consistent with the principles of his or her faith (AKINTOLA, 2010;BARKER, 1993;VARNER, 1983;HARRISON, 1995).
On the one hand, an individual can feel joy when helping another person and being selfless (WARNER et al., 2011). On the other hand, Ward and McKillop (2011) consider that an individual may volunteer for his or her own happiness, keeping busy, meeting people, gaining life experience, making a difference, gaining recognition in society and also because they believe that they may need the organization in the future.
Organizations can create opportunities for volunteers to build relationships with those helped by their donation of time (PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010). Lee et al. (2008), in turn, found that people with wider social networks do more volunteering than people with smaller social networks, potentially indicating the influence of friends. Moreover, social status (MARTA et al., 2006;WARD and MCKILLOP, 2011) and integration are also relevant to volunteers, as well as available information about the organization. Individuals with a family tradition of volunteering tend to engage in time donation to a greater extent (KHOO and ENGELHORN, 2011;AGOSTINHO and PAÇO, 2012;SHYE, 2010;BUSSELL and FORBES, 2002;WILSON, 2000). On the other hand, Phillips and Phillips (2010) found that individuals can volunteer to improve their personal satisfaction, as well as increase their self-esteem. Another motivator is generosity from donors to philanthropic entities (SCHLEGELMILCH and TYNAN, 1989;BUSSELL and FORBES, 2001;PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010). Farrell et al. (1998) undertook research which identified that individuals can volunteer because of solidarity with other people, supported by Unger (1991) and Bussell and Forbes (2002). Besides that, individuals can also donate time to seek or increase social status (WARD and MCKILLOP, 2010). Gottlieb et al. (2013), Marta et al. (2006), Bussell and Forbes (2002) and Wilson (2000) note that volunteers tend to donate their time when they have a sense of identification with the organization, which, according to Vecina et al. (2012), may lead to a long-term commitment by the donor. Bussell and Forbes (2002), Dolnicar and Randle (2007) and Shields (2009) argue that many people donate time because they feel socially responsible. Indeed, Gottlieb et al. (2013) found that when companies create volunteering opportunities for their employees, people tend to volunteer more in order to demonstrate themselves to be socially responsible citizens.
Finally, previous studies have shown that diverse internal variables motivate volunteering. In this research, nine variables were tested (self-esteem, generosity, personal obligation, personal satisfaction, solidarity, social status, family tradition, identification with the organization and/or cause and social responsibility). The results of this study can be used by managers of organizations to improve their marketing strategies with time donors. In summary, studies highlight that internal variables can have an influence on volunteering, as summarized in Table 1.  Clary et al. (1998), Latham and Pinder (2005), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Phillips and Phillips (2010), Klavans and Boyack (2014) 2 Generosity Schlegelmilch and Tynan (1989), Bussell and Forbes (2002), Phillips and Phillips (2010), Klavans and Boyack (2014) 3 Social responsibility Bussell and Forbes (2002), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Gottlieb et al. (2013) 4 Personal satisfaction Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Agostinho and Paço (2012) 5 Solidarity Unger (1991), Farrell et al. (1998), Bussell and Forbes (2002) 6 Social status Source: Prepared by the authors.

External Factors that Favour Volunteering
External motivators (environmental and social) have an effect on an individual's willingness to volunteer. Thus, it is important that organizations working with time donors understand these motivators (BOEZEMAN and ELLEMERS, 2009;BEKKERS and WIEPKING, 2011).
The studies of Brady et al. (1995), Clary et al. (1998), Rosenthal et al. (1998), Bussell and Forbes (2002 and Shields (2009) found that individuals can do volunteer work aiming to add value to their careers through volunteer work. This is in line with the finding of Shields (2009) that volunteers seek selfimprovement in donating time. Thus, these studies show that time donors' motivations can be associated with professional development and curriculum vitae differentiation (MENCHIK and WEISBROD, 1987;DAY and DEVLIN, 1996;BUSSELL and FORBES, 2002;MARTA et al., 2006;DOLNICAR and RANDLE, 2007;PROUTEAU and WOLFF, 2008;SHIELDS, 2009). In this research, the external factors addressed are professional image, recognition from society, organizational image or brand, organizational reputation, holidays, natural disasters, being invited, curriculum vitae differentiation and identification with other volunteers from the group.
The community has an important influence on the decision to volunteer (Akintola 2010) as a potential volunteer may see volunteering as a way to work for the common good, as well as a way to get closer to the people living around him or her and to contribute to a cause that affects the community. Similarly, Smith (1994), Wilson (2000), Kironde and Klaasen (2002), Marta et al. (2006) and Prouteau and Wolff (2008) and Deneulin and Rakodi (2011) consider that recognition from society is an important factor influencing time donation. Examining Maslow's hierarchy of needs, recognition from society is linked to the factors of social recognition and self-realization (Ferreira et al. 2008).
Volunteers see their activities as a way of getting closer to and building relationships with those helped by their time donation (PHILLIPS and PHILLIPS, 2010). For Clary et al. (1998), volunteers may be motivated by their social function as volunteering may enable them to spend time with friends or other people with whom they have an affinity. As a result of the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in Japan, Yamamura (2013) found that many individuals recognized the importance of volunteering and started donating their time to help people who suffered due to the natural disaster. Therefore, it is possible to consider that natural disasters have an influence on volunteering.
Meyer et al.'s (2013) study in Brazilian hospitals indicated that current volunteers are concerned not only about the cause they are helping, but also strategic issues, cost reduction and the organization's public image. Hence, the time donors in their research showed commitment to the organization's reputation and performance. From the opposite perspective, research conducted by Marta et al. (2006) found that an organization's reputation is an important factor influencing an individual's choice to become a volunteer. Besides reputation, it is highlighted that large organizations tend to attract more volunteers because they have a solid brand in the market (MARTA et al., 2006;PROUTEAU and WOLFF, 2008;HAGER and BRUDNEY, 2011).
As some researchers note, certain individuals are invited to donate their time to charitable organization and in this context, the invitation tends to increase the probability of the individual volunteering, demonstrating that being invited can be considered an external factor for time donation (BRADY et al., 1999;2003).
In summary, it can be seen through previous studies that variables external to the individual, such as professional image, recognition from society, identification with other volunteers from the group, organizational reputation, holidays, natural disasters, being invited, curriculum vitae differentiation, organizational image and brand are important for an individual becoming a volunteer. These variables are presented in this research as external factors, summarized in Table 2.

Proposed Relationships between Motivator Variables and Importance in Volunteering
The relationships tested in this study were built through the literature review in which internal and external factors that influence time donation were identified. Many studies, such as those of Fischer and Falconer (2001), Wymer and Samu (2002)

Methodology
To meet the objectives of this research of identifying the internal and external variables that motivate volunteers in general and volunteers of three specific groups, the research method was descriptive, quantitative study was undertaken, cross-sectional and using primary data. The study population comprised people who donate their own time -in other words, volunteers. The total number of volunteers in Brazil is unknown and difficult to estimate, so the sample used in this research was not probabilistic and involved voluntary participation. The volunteers' identities were protected to avoid exposure (HAIR et al., 2005).
The target population for this research comprised any individual who reported donating time to any type of organization, private or public, for example public and private foundations, religious organizations, charitable organizations, among others. In other words, the research did not specify a particular donor of a certain organization. Ultimately, the research sample comprised 321 individuals who reported engaging in or having engaged in voluntary work.
The choice of a heterogeneous population and sample was performed to meet the overall objective of this study to identify general variables that motivate volunteers of diverse organizations. Previous studies (CNAAN and GOLDBERG-GLEN, 1991;ANDERSON and SHAW, 1999;KIRONDE and KLAASEN, 2002;ANDERSEN, 2003;SLATER, 2003;CAISSIE and HALPENNY, 2003;HIBBERT et al., 2003;DE SOUZA and DE CARVALHO, 2006;SOUZA et al., 2008;SHYE, 2010;VERVLOET and PALASSI, 2011;CAVALCANTE et al., 2013) sought to comprehend specific volunteers from individual organizations. Thus, the results of this study can be used by various charity organizations that depend on volunteers, expanding the scope of the results obtained here.
To meet the specific objective of this study, the same sample of 321 volunteers was divided into three specific groups of donors, being composed of 109 volunteers from public and private foundations, 206 volunteers of religious organizations and 100 volunteers of charitable organizations. The remaining 21 volunteers do not fit into any of the 3 types of organizations cited, carrying out voluntary work in different ways, and often sporadically (for example, in disaster reliefs). It worth highlighting that many respondents claim to volunteering in more than one of the three groups analyzed. For example, some respondents indicated they were volunteers in charitable organizations and religious organizations. In such cases, the responses of these individuals were part of two groups.
A questionnaire was developed for data collection. First, it asked a control question: "Do you or have you ever done volunteer work?" In the case of a negative answer, the respondent was excluded from the sample. Ten questions then followed related to sample characteristics, concerning age, gender, personal income, religion, education, marital status, area of residence (rural or urban), frequency of voluntary work, duration of volunteering and type of organization. Of these 10 questions, only the last allowed more than one answer. Finally, the questionnaire presented 19 statements related to the general internal and external variables that motivate time donation, as shown in the Appendix.
For each statement the respondents were asked to indicate the extent of their agreement using a fivepoint Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Initially, the questionnaire was completed by 10 people in a piloting phase. From these first results, it was possible to amend issues found in the statements to avoid interpretation problems. After the adjustments, another pilot was undertaken with five more respondents. As no further adjustments were necessary, data collection began on an online platform -Google Docs -commencing 8 December 2014 and ending 2 March 2015. The link was sent by email to potential respondents and was released on Facebook. In addition, 400 printed copies of the questionnaire were given directly to respondents. Of the printed forms, 234 were returned completed; however, nine were from people who asserted they had never volunteered and thus these responses were discarded. The online and Facebook surveys generated a further 96 valid responses, resulting in a final sample of 321 questionnaires for analysis.
Data were initially analyzed by a general characterization of the sample. Then we performed a descriptive statistic on the responses of 321 volunteers. Finally, we presented four linear regressions to meet the general and specific objectives of this study, the first regression was for the total group of volunteers and the remaining

Data Analysis Sample Characteristics
This research used a sample of 321 people who reported being time donors of whom 65.4% were female and 34.6% male, as shown in Table 3. a The percentage of each option was calculated in relation to the size of the sample and not in relation to the total number of answers as this item allowed more than one answer per person.
In terms of the characteristics of the sample, it was found that 9 in 10 volunteers practised a religion and of these, with the study of Akintola (2010), who found that religious volunteers believe that this type of activity is a way to spread their faith. Phillips and Phillips (2010) also noted in the United States that religious organizations received the most time donations.
Moreover, volunteers tend to donate their time frequently, with 54.5% of the respondents reporting that they do voluntary work every week. The analysis also showed that people generally act as volunteers for medium to long periods, with the options '1-5 years' and '> 10 years' attaining percentages of 36.1% and 34.9% respectively.
Another aspect of the profile of volunteers is that 65.4% were women and of these 33.3% were middleaged, being between 36 and 50 years old, similar to the findings Garland et al.'s (2008) study. The analysis also indicated that a considerable proportion of volunteers had higher education (49.5%) and an income of 4-10 times the minimum wage (43.9%). Around 64% donated their time to an organization of a religious nature. No overriding trend was found in terms of marital status as single and married people showed high and similar percentages, while widowed and divorced volunteers were less well represented. In short, bearing the control question in mind (do you or have you ever done voluntary work?), it is possible to consider that this sample presents a potential portrait of the typical Brazilian volunteer.

Analysis of Internal and External Factors
A preliminary analysis was undertaken to calculate the means and standard deviations of the variables to observe respondents' perceptions of what they consider important in terms of volunteering. The results are shown in Table 4. Examining Table 4, it is verified that the dependent variable 'I consider volunteer work to be something important to me' has the highest mean (4.79), meaning that the respondents agreed either partially or strongly with this statement. The standard deviation is also the lowest among all the variables (0.52), indicating low heterogeneity in the sample. As the respondents in this study were volunteers, it was expected that they would consider volunteering to be something important.
In terms of internal factors, the variables with high means are solidarity, self-esteem, personal satisfaction and social responsibility, illustrating that people volunteer to fulfil their own desires, as noted by Shields (2009). However, the latter three variables had high standard deviations, indicating divergence among respondents concerning the importance of these factors.
Still focusing on internal factors, identification with the organization and/or cause and generosity have means close to 4.0, indicating that both factors are relevant for volunteering. Both standard deviations are higher than 1.0, however, indicating that these variables are not important to some respondents. Family tradition, personal obligation and social status have means below 3.0, showing that respondents accord less importance to these variables. Social status and personal obligation also have standard deviations below 1.0, indicating consensus among the sample.
The highest means in this research corroborate the findings of some other studies, such as those of Schlegelmilch and Tynan (1989), Bussell and Randle (2007) and Phillips and Phillips (2010), and the last of which stated that a volunteer can be motivated by feelings of generosity, for example. Wilson (2000), Marta et al. (2006), Vecina et al. (2012) and Gottlieb et al. (2013) argue that identification with the organization and/or cause leads the individual to volunteer and may maintain this commitment for a long period of time. Similar to this study, the variables social status and personal obligation were the least influential in Akintola's (2010) research. Finally, Gottlieb et al. (2013) reported that some volunteers seek social recognition through donating their time.
The highest mean is identification with other volunteers of the group (2.94); even with a mean that can be considered low, affinity among volunteers could be a relevant external factor. Both being invited to donate time (2.71) and professional image (2.64) also have means below 3.0, but they are among the highest means for external factors, indicating that some volunteers donate their time for these reasons. These three variables present high standard deviations, indicating that for some respondents these motivators are important, but for others they are not.
The highest standard deviation is for natural catastrophes (1.50). Analysing this variable in an individual manner, 47.3% of the total of 321 respondents partially or strongly disagree that this aspect is a motivator for volunteering and 31.15% partially or strongly agree that it is a source of motivation. This indicates a distinct division between the volunteers in terms of donating time when natural catastrophes happen, which is confirmed by the mean of 2.56. This goes against Yamamura's (2013) finding that this variable is relevant to time donation. The other variables in this group have means below 2.0; thus, for most of the respondents, recognition from society, the organization's image/brand and the organization's reputation, holidays and curriculum vitae differentiation are not considered important in generating the motivation to volunteer. The variables recognition from society and holidays, studied by Smith (1994), Wilson (2000), Kironde and Klaasen (2002), Marta et al. (2006), Prouteau and Wolff (2008), Ferreira et al. (2008), Akintola (2010) and Oliveira and Generosi (2010), have standard deviations below 1.0, indicating homogeneity among the respondents in terms of the relative lack of importance of such motivators.
The lowest mean among the external factors is for social status at 1.33, with a standard deviation of 0.80, which diverges from Ward and McKillop's (2011) study. In all, 13 variables out of a total of 18 have standard deviations above 1.0, meaning that there is low homogeneity in the respondents' opinions, which might suggest several, diverse motivations for a person to volunteer.
It can be observed that most variables that compose internal factors have means higher than 3.0, except the variables social status, family tradition and obligation. The external factors do not present means above 3.0. This suggests that internal factors tend to be more important for most of the respondents in this study, indicating that they do not generally volunteer to present their attitude to society and are not even influenced by it.
Finally, it is possible to notice from the descriptive statistics that although internal factors are the most important for this group of respondents, there is divergence in terms of motivations, indicating that volunteers can perhaps be clustered by similarities. This corroborates the findings of Agostinho and Paço (2012), affirming that personal motivations can change and are not constant and thus justifying the continuation of research on volunteers' motivations.
In conclusion, it was verified that the variables related to the internal factors, in their great majority, obtained higher means than the external factors, this inclines to reinforce that the internal variables may be more important for the volunteers than the external motivators. This result may help organizations understand that the researched volunteers tend to consider personal variables more important, and this should be considered by organizations in their processes of attraction, selection and maintenance of time donors.

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis
To meet the general and specific objectives of this study, four multiple linear regressions were performed. In all regressions, the dependent variable was the perceived importance of volunteering for the respondent. The independent variables were the internal and external variables that motivate the donation of time. The first regression reached all 321 surveyed volunteers. The remaining three regressions were performed separately with 109 volunteers from public and private foundations, 206 volunteers for religious organizations and 100 volunteers from charitable organizations. Each regression was based on the following regression model: Y= β 0 + β self-esteem + β generosity + β social responsibility + β personal satisfaction + β solidarity + β social status + β family tradition + β identification with the organization and/or cause + β personal obligation + β professional image + β recognition from society + β organizational image or brand + β organizational reputation + β holidays + β natural disasters + β being invited + β curriculum vitae differentiation + β identification with other volunteers from the group + E.
Each regression analysis was done to verify which internal and external factors might have a significant effect on the dependent variable, linked to the statement 'I consider voluntary work to be something important to me'. For each one of the regressions we performed validity tests, which show the adequacy of the multiple linear regression for testing the relationships between internal and external variables motivating volunteer work (independent variables) and the importance of volunteering to the volunteer (dependent variable).

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis for all volunteers
To meet the overall objective of this study, in this regression we used data relating to the 321 donors, that is, sought to identify what is associated with the importance in volunteering for the volunteers in general. Tables  5 and 6 presented the results of the multiple linear regression. The description of the assumptions tested are shown in table 5.  Analysing Tables 5 and 6, it can be observed that the variables self-esteem, personal obligation, social responsibility and professional image are associated with the dependent variable. The first independent variable, self-esteem, also appears in Agostinho and Paço's (2012), Klavans and Boyack (2014) work, indicating that volunteers can donate their time for altruistic reasons, as in Varner (1983), who reported that some volunteers help for pleasure and fun. According to Clary et al. (1998), when individuals donate their time, they may be aiming to improve their self-esteem, in other words, to feel better about themselves, reflected in the statement 'I do voluntary work to feel better about myself '. On the other hand, individuals may volunteer because they experience joy in helping other people (WARNER et al., 2011) or volunteer to feel happy (WARD and MCKILLOP, 2011). Ward and McKillop (2011) consider that some individuals volunteer to keep themselves busy and to meet people, which could be personal motivators for those experiencing shyness or loneliness.
The second independent variable, personal obligation, is also included in the studies of Varner (1983) and Harrison (1995), in which volunteers reported that they feel obligated to undertake voluntary work. The negative association for the statement 'I do voluntary work for reasons of obligation (personal, family, social, organizational or other)' goes against the notion of the individual feeling obligated to give something back to society. Thus, according to the results, the more an individual feels obligated to volunteer, the less likely he or she is to volunteer. In contrast, the variable social responsibility is shown to be one of the internal factors that are associated with the importance of volunteering. Bussell and Forbes (2001), Dolnicar and Randle (2007) and Gottlieb et al. (2013) argue that many people donate their time because of a sense of social responsibility. Agreement with the statement 'I do voluntary work because I feel socially responsible' indicates that the respondents feel that they have a role to play in society and that voluntary work is part of people's responsibility as citizens, increasing the personal perception of the importance of volunteering. This seems to be less to do with obligation and more of a wish to contribute, i.e. more closely linked to altruistic motives.
A negative association is found between professional image and voluntary work, which does not accord with the research of Clary et al. (1998) who found that individuals volunteer to add value to their careers. Similarly, Shields (2009) found that time donors volunteer for reasons of professional development. On the other hand, according to the results of this research, the greater volunteers' concern for professional image, the lower the perception of the importance of volunteering. Thus, this divergent result from that of previous studies (CLARY et al., 1998;SHIELDS, 2009) may indicate that volunteers who seek to improve their professional image view volunteering an alternative. However, in these individuals' vision, volunteering is more important to themselves than to the people who benefit from the voluntary work.
After analysing the data using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression, it is possible to argue that internal factors are more relevant than external factors in both analyses, relating to volunteering in general. In the descriptive statistics, these variables had means above 3.0 and three out of four significant variables in the regressions were internal factors, indicating that internal factors are of greater significance for the perception of the importance of volunteering among the sample analysed.
It can be verified from the previous studies in literature that 18 (internal and external) variables can motivate the volunteers, in this study, however it was verified that of these 18 variables, only 6 variables were considered important by general volunteers, and these are the ones that motivate them to donate their time for the various organizations that were analyzed in this research. It is thus the organization that depends on the volunteers to analyze which motivators are relevant to these time donors, and thus, seek to create their strategies of attraction and maintenance of donors.

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis for Specific Groups
To meet the specific objective of this study, tables 7 and 8 presented 3 multiple linear regressions referring to volunteers of Public and Private Foundations, of charitable organizations and religious organizations. The description of the tested assumptions is presented in table 7.  We can verify in Tables 7 and 8 that out of the 18 internal and external variables related to the motivation in volunteering for donors who are volunteers in public/private foundations, only the self-esteem and personal obligation variables were associated with the importance of volunteering in this group. The variable self-esteem was positively related with the importance of volunteering. This variable was previously identified in the study by Agostinho and Paço (2012) as being associated with volunteer work. On the other hand, the variable personal obligation was negatively related to volunteering, that is, the more sense of obligation is involved, the less important volunteer work becomes.
We can also verify in the presented results in Tables 7 and 8 that out of the 18 tested variables in the group of volunteers of charitable organizations, self esteem, solidarity and personal obligation were significant. The variable self-esteem was positively associated with the importance of volunteering to donors of time to charitable organizations. This result corroborates the findings by Lathan and Pinder (2005), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Clary et al. (2008), Phillips and Phillips (2010) and Klavans and Boyack (2014). The second positively associated variable was solidarity, that is, charity volunteers tend to volunteer due to feelings of solidarity towards others. This positive association between volunteering and solidarity was previously identified in studies by Unger (1991), Farrell et al. (1998) and Dolnicar and Randle (2007). Finally, the variable personal obligation was negatively related to volunteer work, that is, for volunteers who donate their time to charitable organizations, the more one feels obliged to volunteer, the less importance one attributes to volunteering, which runs counter to studies, which goes against the studies by Varner (1983) and Harrison (1995).
Finally, in Tables 7 and 8, we can observe the results of the internal and external variables that volunteers from religious organizations consider in relation to their importance of volunteering. Of the 18 variables tested, only two were significant, the internal variable self-esteem was positively related, and the external variable identification with other donors, negatively related. Thus, following the results of the other groups, also for volunteers who donate their time to religious organizations, self-esteem is associated with the importance of volunteering, corroborating the results of studies by Lathan and Pinder (2005), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Clary et al. (2008), Phillips and Phillips (2010) and Klavans and Boyack (2014).
The negative association acknowledged in the variable identification with other donors tends to indicate that the identification with other volunteers reduces the allocation of importance of volunteering for this group of volunteers, not corroborating with the study by Clary et al. (1998), which identified that volunteers may be motivated to volunteering due to the fact of being with friends or people who they have affinity with. The result here shows the opposite, that if the volunteer has an affinity with the other volunteers, the importance of volunteering decreases.
It can be confirmed that volunteers who donate their time to the three organizations tend to have different motivations, and are mostly motivated by internal variables, except the identification with other donors, which is an external motivator. This tends to reinforce that different organizations tend to have different volunteers´ profiles, and that this should be considered by these organizations when defining their goals, values and beliefs, in order to achieve an alignment between volunteer´s goals and organizational goals , which can bring long-term benefits to both.

Discussion
Based on the analysis and literature review related to the perception of the importance of volunteering, it is apparent that, considering volunteers in general,there is an association with three variables related to internal factors (self-esteem, personal obligation and social responsibility) and one related to external factors (professional image), which are also found to show a relationship in the studies of Phillips and Phillips (2010), Agostinho and Paço (2012), Gottlieb et al. (2013), Shields (2009), Clary et al. (1998), Latham and Pinder (2005), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Bussell and Forbes (2002), Varner (1983), Harrison (1995), Brady et al. (1995) and Rosenthal et al. (1998).
When volunteers in general, the variables self-esteem and social responsibility are positively associated with the perception of the importance of volunteering, as observed in the regression analysis. On the other hand, there is a negative association between the variables personal obligation and professional image and the perception of the importance. Following the analysis of the proposed model of linear regression, a new model is obtained, presenting the positive and negative variables associated with the importance of volunteering for time donors as follows: Volunteers in general: Y= β 0 + 0.194 self-esteem -0.075 personal obligation + 0.061 social responsibility -0.039 professional image + E.
Analysing the formula, two variables are similar to previous studies, in other words, producing an expected result. Specifically, the positive relationship between self-esteem and voluntary work is also evident in the research of Clary et al. (1998), Warner et al. (2011 and Ward and McKillop (2011), who demonstrate that individuals aim to feel better about themselves through volunteering. For Agostinho and Paço (2012), volunteers predominantly seek physiological and altruistic benefits in terms of satisfaction. Moreover, from the results for the variable social responsibility, respondents consider voluntary work to be part of their responsibilities as citizens, increasing their perception of the importance of volunteering, in line with the findings of Shields (2009) and Gottlieb et al. (2013).
The variables personal obligation and professional image, however, are negatively associated with the perception of the importance of volunteering. In other words, the more obligated individuals feel to volunteer, the less important they consider voluntary work. In addition, the more concerned individuals are about their professional image, the less they consider volunteering important. Clary et al. (1998) found the opposite, namely that people undertake voluntary work aiming to add value to their careers.
Finally, of the 18 variables analysed with the volunteers in general, it is possible to verify that only 4 are associated with the importance of volunteering, two (self-esteem and social responsibility) showing a positive association and two (personal obligation and professional image) a negative association. This result can help organizations to understand that the greater the feelings of self-esteem and social responsibility held by volunteers, the greater the importance they will accord time donation. On the other hand, the more the volunteers feel obligated to donate their time or the more they are committed to the idea of improving their professional image, the lower the importance they will assign to voluntary work. That is, the greater the sense of obligation or personal benefit involved in voluntary work, the lower the value assigned to this activity by time donors. Thus, organizations can use these results to understand that volunteers become involved in donating time to fulfil motivation of personal well-being and social responsibility.
When volunteers are analyzed separately, especially volunteers of public/private foundations, of charitable organizations and religious organizations, we found different results, as shown in the equations below: Volunteers of Public/Private Foundations: Y= β 0 + 0.315 self-esteem -0.171 personal obligation + E.
Volunteers of religious organizations: Y= β 0 + 0.167 self-esteem -0.048 identification with other volunteers from the group + E.
From the results we ewre able to verify that the three regression models of specific groups, for these three groups of donors, self-esteem had a positive association with the importance of volunteering, as previously identified in the studies by Clary et al. (1998), Latham and Pinder (2005), Dolnicar and Randle (2007), Phillips and Phillips (2010) Klavans and Boyack (2014). For volunteers of foundations and charitable organizations, personal obligation presented a negative association, that is, for these donors, the greater the sense of obligation, the lower the importance of volunteering. Another negative association was identified when volunteers from religious organizations were questioned about the following statement "I do voluntary work because I identify with others voluntereers from the group". The recognition with other volunteers is negatively related to the importance of volunteering, something that surprises but is subject to explanation. The result indicates that volunteers of religious organizations acknowledges the importance of volunteering as a work for the society and not because their friends participate in it (Varner, 1983;Barker, 1993;Harrison, 1995;Akintola, 2010). Finally, in the regression analysis of volunteers of charitable organizations, when the volunteers were asked about the statement "I do voluntary work to be supportive of others", this variable obtained a positive association with the importance of volunteering, which was previously identified by Unger (1991), Farrell et al. (1998) e Bussell e Forbes (2002).
These identified results in this study tend to emphasize that the same group of volunteers may have different motivations depending on which type of organization they will volunteer to. It should be considered that for the four regressions in this research, personal obligation was negatively associated with the motivation to do voluntary services in all types of organizations, and on the other hand, self-esteem was positively associated with voluntary service in all types of sectors. Besides that, the group of volunteers such as the charitable organizations, the feeling of solidarity was also positively associated with the motivation to volunteer. Another matter to be emphasized by these results is that the internal motivations tended to motivate the group of volunteers as the most influential, meaning that, what leads these volunteers to volunteer work is more linked to internal reasons than to external influences.

Conclusions and Recommendations
This study aimed to identify the general internal and external variables that Brazilian volunteers consider important and that motivate them to engage in voluntary work. From the analysis, it is possible to observe that four variables significantly affect time donors' perceptions of the importance do doadores gerais. The variables self-esteem and social responsibility are positively associated with volunteering. On the other hand, the variables personal obligation and professional image are negatively associated with volunteering, meaning that these two variables cannot considered as important in terms of motivation in the sample analysed. Thus, it is possible to conclude that internal factors are more important in motivating volunteers in general to donate their time to organizations, as indicated by both the descriptive statistics and the regression analysis.
Furthermore, as a specific objective, we sought to identify the factors considered important for volunteers donating time from three types of organizations: Public and Private Foundations, Religious Organizations and Charitable Organizations. The results indicated that for volunteers of foundations only the internal factors were significant, specifically the variables selfesteem and personal obligation. For the volunteers of religious organizations, two variables were significant, one referring to an internal factor (self esteem) and one referring to an external factor (the affinity with other volunteers) and this was negatively associated with the importance of volunteering. For volunteers of charitable organizations, three internal variables (self-esteem, solidarity and personal obligation) were considered important for performing volunteer work. It is noteworthy that the variable personal obligation showed a negative association regarding the importance of volunteering both in the group of volunteers for foundations, as for charitable organizations.
Therefore, it is possible to conclude that, for all the researched volunteers, the reasons for volunteering were more related to internal factors than to external ones. Except, the volunteers from religious organizations, who are both motivated by the self-esteem variable which is an internal factor, as negatively with the identification with other donors variable, which is external. Overall, this tends to reinforce the importance that volunteers give to the question of seeking their self-esteem in volunteering, in their sense of solidarity and social responsibility. In addition, that the greater the sense of obligation, the less it tends to be the interest in volunteering. This understanding of all 18 variables, even if only 6 were significant for this group, is worth considering for the organizations that depend on the volunteers, to analyze and understand these motivators in order to review their way of selecting, recruiting and retaining their current volunteers and future potential ones.
As in all studies, this one has its limitations, among which it should be highlighted that the use of a nonprobabilistic convenience sample does not allow confirmation or generalization. However, this sample may provide relevant evidence to be confirmed by following studies. The choice of variables in the current research may also be a limitation and new variables should be identified and added in future research. Another suggestion is to study donors in light of the relationship with demographic variables, such as age, gender, marital status and income. In doing so, it will be possible to verify if the perceptions of these donors differs depending on such characteristics. Finally, it is suggested that the three variables with negative associations in this research, personal obligation, professional image and affinity with other donors be analysed separately in qualitative research to investigate their impact on donors in greater depth.
In terms of practical implications, the results of this study may be useful to organizations that draw on voluntary work in improving their marketing activities, giving them a better understanding of the aspects donors consider important in deciding to volunteer and thus the ability to develop mechanisms to select, recruit and retain volunteers. Understanding the general variables associated with time donation as studied through data collected from various donors can make the management of organizations that depend on volunteers easier as they can use this research to comprehend the general behaviour of volunteers. The results of the analyses of the three specific groups of volunteers can be used by public/private foundations, religious organizations and charitable organizations to understand the behavior of their volunteers. Another practical contribution of this study is the awaken in the organizations that depend on the volunteers, to seek the understanding of what motivates their volunteers, so in practice they can seek from this research, to carry out internal researchs with their volunteers, as well as create a plan for evaluate the satisfaction of their volunteers, conduct interviews and check with their volunteer, what they consider relevant to continue to volunteer in the organization. As, this is a challenge for organizations, to engage volunteers who can collaborate with the organization in the long run and seek to identify and create a more homogenous group of volunteers, engaged and consistent with the goals, beliefs and values shared by both, the volunteer and the organization for which they donate their time.
Moreover, in terms of its theoretical contribution, many previous studies have sought to understand what is considered important to a time donor and therefore what motivates volunteering behaviour. The novelty of this research is that it studies the internal and external variables that affect the motivation of time donors from a heterogeneous sample of volunteers in different types of organizations. Another contribution of this study was in seeking to understand what motivates three specific groups of volunteers, who donate their time to public/private foundations, religious organizations and charitable organizations. It can also be emphasized that this research contributes to the advances of the research on the time donor´s behavior, a subject that is increasingly relevant, considering the importance that the volunteers have on the matter of survival and permanence of these organizations.
This research has focused on an important issue as many organizations need volunteers to keep their activities going. Therefore, future studies can use the contributions of this research to undertake further studies related to time donors' behaviour, which could add significant knowledge of value both to entities that need this information and academia, analysing general variables associated with time donation and investigating volunteers who donate their time to various organizations.
Another suggestion for future research are: to identify new variables that may be related to motivation for volunteer work; to analyze if there are differences in the motivations of the volunteers when it comes to gender, schooling and age, as this can help organizations to better define the profile of their volunteers and facilitate in their attraction process. Thus, qualitative research using in depth interviews can be made in order to understand what motivates volunteers from both specific organizations and volunteers in general.