As a result of a private research project I am engaged in, I wonder what exactly is the definition of a volunteer, non-profit or a member of a non-profit. There are a few other blogs I wanted to write concerning these things but I kept on coming back to the question, but what exactly is a ….?

A Non-Exhaustive List & Definitions

The good news is that the first two terms (volunteer and non-profit) had similar definitions from most sources. An emphasis here, a localized addition there – but basically kissin’ cousins. Membership was a different story, but more on that in a bit.

As interesting as this was to research, this is not exhaustive review. Where I came across multiple definitions I selected (in order) the Canadian over an Anglo/America source and this source over an international (e.g. United Nations). This social, geographic and cultural bias is intended as I will primarily use these definitions for Canadian readers [6].

I plan to return to this blog as time and circumstances permit. As always, send me your definitions and I will make corrections/additions in subsequent updates. …. And now a word from our definitions.

Non-Profit: An Organiz(ation)ed list of Definitions

My preferred definition is from Volunteer Canada [5]:

Self-governing organizations that exist to serve the public benefit and generate social capital but do not distribute private profit to members. The organization depends on volunteers and is independent or institutionally distinct from the formal structures of government and the profit sector. A non-profit organization can be a large structured organization or a small community or grassroots organization.

Volunteer Canada

However, there are some nuances here, starting with Statistics Canada and their division of Canada’s non-profit sector is divided into three groups [7]:

1. Community non-profit institutions: including organizations engaged in social services, advocacy or sports and recreation. These make up the “non-profit institutions serving households” sector in standard macroeconomic measures.
2. Business non-profit institutions: including, for example, business associations, chambers of commerce and condominium associations. These are classified to the business sector in standard measures.
3. Government non-profit institutions: including, hospitals, some residential care facilities, universities and colleges. These are classified to the government sector in standard measures.

The above division is consistent with the United Nations definition (see below). Before leaving this definition, who gets to issue a tax receipt [1], [2] and [3]?

• Registered Charity: is an organization approved and registered by the Canada Revenue Agency.  It may be a society, corporation, trust or other entity.  It can also engage in some limited for-profit activities (think of a candy shop in a hospital). 
• Non-Profit: a broad collection of organizations typically registered as a charitable corporation or a society here in Alberta but which can NOT issue a tax receipt. 
• Unincorporated Association: a collection of individuals working toward a common non-profit goal but without the protection afforded in law as a corporation or society.

Other Definitions

• United Nations: … an organization that is is Not-for-profit and non-profit-distributing; Institutionally separate from government; Self-governing; and Non-compulsory. [3]
• Volunteer Australia: An enterprise, association or part thereof, which has as its primary objective, a social rather than economic purpose, and which reinvests any financial surpluses in the services or products it offers. [11, Glossary]
• Canada Revenue Agency: CRA recognizes defined ‘charitable purposes’ which are in turn are based on British and Canadian legislation and common law. Although intended to be used in the context of determining tax eligibility to issue charitable receipts, they also provide a handy reference for what society sees as a non-profit organization [14].
  • Relief of poverty: bring relief to those experiencing poverty. People experiencing poverty are those who lack the basic necessities of life or simple amenities available to the general population.
  • Advancement of Education: training of the mind, advancing the knowledge or abilities of the recipient, raising the artistic taste of the community, or improving a useful branch of human knowledge through research.
  • Advancement of Religion: an element of theistic worship, which means the worship of a deity or deities in the spiritual sense. To preach and advance the spiritual teachings of a religious faith, and to maintain the doctrines and spiritual observances on which those teachings are based
  • Other purposes beneficial to the community: various purposes recognized in common law as charitable:
    • Seniors Support: relieving a condition or disability associated with old age, which includes providing facilities for the care and rehabilitation of the elderly
    • Promotion of Health and Disability Support: preventing and relieving sickness and disability, both physical and mental (for example, hospitals)
    • Public Amenities: that benefit a community (public recreation grounds).
    • Appreciation of Arts or Heritage Sites.
    • Distress Support: providing counselling services for people, families and youth in distress
    • Animal Welfare: operating an animal shelter
    • Volunteer Fire Department.

Volunteer:

The definition from Volunteer Canada is short, snappy and my preference:

Volunteer: Any person who gives freely of their time, energy and skills for public benefit, without monetary compensation

Volunteer Canada [5, p. 14]

There are numerous variations and nuances which include the following [5]:

• Virtual Volunteering: completes tasks, in whole or in part, off-site from the organization using the Internet.
• Skills-Based Volunteering: leverages the specialized skills and talents of individuals.
• Micro-Volunteering: A form of virtual volunteering, micro-volunteering describes a task done by a volunteer or team of volunteers, usually via the Internet. It typically does not require an application process, screening or training period because it takes only minutes or a few hours to complete. Micro-volunteering does not require an ongoing commitment.
• Episodic volunteering: Volunteering opportunities that are temporary (volunteering only for a short time), interim (volunteering on a regular basis but for a defined period, for example on a project) and occasional (those volunteering for short periods of service at regular intervals). Event volunteering, for examples festivals and sports events, are common forms of episodic volunteering. [13, p. 12]
• Family and intergenerational volunteering: Involves two or more generations participating as volunteers in the same activity. This can be a strategy to engage volunteers who otherwise have caring commitments, although involving different age groups may increase organisational liabilities. [13, p. 12]
• Corporate, workplace, employee or employer-supported volunteering: Employees are encouraged to volunteer by their employer. These initiatives are often part of corporate social responsibility programs. [13, p. 12]
• Other Variations: Wikipedia: Volunteering lists a plethora of volunteer types. Unfortunately combines the types of volunteers (virtual, skills based) with the organization or context in which they are volunteering (school, corporate, etc.).

Volunteer Canada offers four categories of volunteering and giving [8]:

1. (Regular) formal volunteering: Giving unpaid help (at least once a month) through groups, clubs or organizations to benefit other people or the environment.
2. (Regular) informal volunteering: Giving unpaid help (at least once a month) as an individual to people who are not relatives.
3. Social action: Giving unpaid help to support a community event, campaign or project.
4. Charitable donation: Donating money to charitable causes. (Editors note: I don’t think this should be included, the donation of time is not equal to the donation of wealth).

Other definitions of a volunteer include:

• Service Volunteers: those who are donating time to serve or help in a variety of mission-related capacities directly connected to programs, services and activities. [10]
• United Nations: Volunteering are the contributions individuals make as nonprofit, non-wage, and non-career action for the well-being of their neighbors, and society as large [3, p. 247].
• Badelt: voluntary work is defined as work without monetary pay or legal obligation provided for persons living outside the volunteer’s own household [3, p. 249].
• Cnaan (1996): Volunteering has four components and four dimensions [12]:
  • Components: free will, no monetary reward, formal organizations, helping others.
  • Dimensions: time to volunteer, nature of the volunteer activity, object of the volunteering and the overall volunteer environment.
  • This provides a very comprehensive way to think about volunteering but is a bit much for layman’s definition of the concept.
• Volunteer Australia: Formal volunteering is an activity which takes place in not for profit organisations or projects and is undertaken:
  • to be of benefit to the community and the volunteer;
  • of the volunteer’s own free will and without coercion;
  • for no financial payment; and
  • in designated volunteer positions only.

Member:

Finding a definition of a non-profit member proved more problematic. This is because of the diversity of relationships a person may have with an organization. It may be casual, signing up for an online cause/petition, or more intensive such as applying to be a Freemason or an elite fraternity. For my purposes, I developed this definition:

A registered adherent to the organization per the bylaws of the organization and the applicable jurisdictional statues.

Frank Potter, adapted from multiple sources

Some other considerations for a non-profit’s membership include the following:

• Belonging, either individually or collectively, to a group. Members are required to pay a fee to join or participate. Special privileges or benefits are entitled to members although not all members may have the same rights and privileges. [4]
• A member may or may not be a volunteer.
• A subscriber to your organization for which there may nor may not be a donation, fee or participation in the organization. An unincorporated association is more likely to have these individuals as it could be neighbours or members of a Meetup.com group.
• A member is defined under the statutes or common law of a jurisdiction as part of the process of incorporation.
• For more on this, see Tom Pierce’s discussion for defining membership in Hawaii. Setting aside your next board of director’s junket, the article can be retrofitted to most Canadian, American, European contexts [9]. Key components are:
  • Membership is defined in the incorporation process and allows an non-profit to declare whether or not there are members.
    • Hawaii Statutes: ʺMemberʺ means (without regard to what a person is called in the articles or bylaws) any person or persons having the rights and obligations of membership pursuant to a corporation’s articles of incorporation or bylaws.
  • If there are members, they are automatically granted rights and responsibilities. This includes an annual meeting, presentation of reports, selection of directors, inspection of records and release of organizational liability.
  • Members have few responsibilities including payment of dues (if levied) and adherence to a set of standards set out by the organization (but limited by laws).
  • A nonmember organization has a self-perpetuating board of directors but may also have more burdensome regulatory checks and balances on its activities.

Notes and Further Reading

1. [1] Adapted from Aptowitzer, pp. 15-19 and 49-52.  This and the website, www.runningacharity.ca are both excellent resources.  Organizations may want to consider giving new board members a copy of his book! Aptowitzer, Adam. Starting and Maintaining a Charity in Canada, 2014.
2. Agency, Canada Revenue. “What Is the Difference between a Registered Charity and a Non-Profit Organization?” Service description. aem, January 21, 2016. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/giving-charity-information-donors/about-registered-charities/what-difference-between-a-registered-charity-a-non-profit-organization.html.
3. United Nations Statistics Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs. “Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts.” United Nations, 2003. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/publications/catalogue/.
4. This definition is a bit to broad for my tastes. Idealist Consulting. “Finding the Best Membership Model for Your Nonprofit.” Accessed October 19, 2020. https://idealistconsulting.com/blog/finding-best-membership-model-your-nonprofit.
5. Volunteer Canada. Canadian Code for Volunteer Involvement – Resources – Volunteer Canada. University of Waterloo, 2017. https://volunteer.ca/index.php?MenuItemID=346.
6. See reference [3] above and specifically Annex 7, “2.3 Unpaid Work and Volunteering”. Not surprisingly, the notion of what is volunteering and what is a volunteer varies across countries and is closely related to aspects of culture and history. Before turning to more economic aspects, it is useful to take a brief look at some of the sociological factors that shape the meaning, form and pattern of volunteering. For sure, the British and American concept of volunteering, the French voluntariat, the Italian voluntariato, the Swedish frivillig verksamhet or the German Ehrenamt have different histories, and carry different cultural and political connotations (see Anheier and Salamon 1999).
7. Statistics Canada definitions based on the United Nations’ methodology discussed in [3] above. Government of Canada, Statistics Canada. “Satellite Account of Non-Profit Institutions and Volunteering,” February 1, 2019. https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=5110.
8. Unfortunately I was unable to find the original source for this quote, this reproduction from Volunteer Alberta, https://volunteeralberta.ab.ca/blog/volunteering-mean-canadians/.
9. Pierce, Tom. “Understanding Nonprofit ‘Members’ and ‘Membership’ For Hawaii Nonprofit Organizations.” Tom Pierce, Attorney at Law, Fall 2010. http://mauilandlaw.com/nonprofit-resources/startupandnpbasics/.
10. Brudney, J. L. (2010). Designing and Managing Volunteer Programs. In D. O. Renz, & &. Associates (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management (pp. 753-793). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
11. Volunteering Australia. National Standards for Involving Volunteers in Not-for-Profit Organisations. Victoria: Volunteering Australia Inc., 2001.
12. Cnaan, Ram A., Femida Handy, and Margaret Wadsworth. “Defining Who Is a Volunteer: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 25, no. 3 (September 1996): 364–83.
13. Smith, Karen, and Carolyn J. Cordery. “What Works? A Systematic Review of Research and Evaluation Literature on Encouragement and Support of Volunteering.” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, June 14, 2010. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1761655.
14. Agency, Canada Revenue. “Charitable Purposes.” aem, April 19, 2018. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/charities-giving/charities/registering-charitable-qualified-donee-status/applying-charitable-registration/charitable-purposes.html.