Crisis Volunteerism is the New Black?—Exploring the Diversity of Voluntary Engagement in Crisis Management

Both crisis research and crisis management policy suggest that crisis management experiences a “participatory turn” and it seems to be a renewed interest in the topic of crisis volunteerism. However, the voice of volunteer organizations, paradoxically, appears to be missing in research. This article builds on an interview study (26 interviews) with different types of voluntary organizations in Sweden. It explores two aspects of crisis volunteerism (i) the diversity of crisis volunteerism and (ii) the changing landscape of crisis volunteerism. The Disaster Research Center (DRC) typology is used to understand different types of volunteering and how different organizational types relate to each other. The empirical material shows that a significant amount of voluntary engagement with relevance to crisis management takes place outside the realm of core crisis management actors. An important finding is that the number of avenues where voluntary engagement is needed has expanded, and as a result, we need to engage new volunteer groups in society. Hence, the study suggests a more adaptive and inclusive understanding of the phenomenon of crisis volunteerism.