Motives and intent to continue organizational volunteering among residents of a retirement community area

Over 40% of elders are estimated to engage in organizational volunteering. Research on older volunteers' motives is hampered by the tendency of investigators to analyze data on an item-by-item basis. In the present study, we examined the implications of taking unidimensional and multidimensional approaches to aggregating motive items for predicting elders' intent to continue volunteering. The sample consisted of 242 community service volunteers who resided in a retirement community area (minimum age = 5 years old). The results indicated that motives for volunteering were better predictors of intent to continue volunteering when the multidimensional (as opposed to unidimensional) approach to aggregation was used. Valueexpressive motive scores were found to be significantly related to intent only for volunteers who were high on both knowledge and social-adjustive motive scores.