Over the past thirty years, government and voluntary-sector initia
tives have stimulated both expansion of the number of volunteers
and greater participation by young people, the elderly, and non-
whites. Despite the high priority given to volunteering by the Reagan
administration, federally sponsored programs did not expand, the
proportion of Americans engaged in volunteering declined, and more
volunteers shifted into organizations affected by reductions in human
services. The idea that reducing services would motivate people to
volunteer was based on invalid assumptions about the ideology of
volunteers and the factors that motivate people to work for free. A
synergistic rather than a competitive relationship might exist between
the public and the voluntary sectors.
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