Do not forget about your volunteers: a qualitative analysis of factors influencing volunteer turnover.

The number of individuals who share their time and talents as volunteers is on the rise. In 1993 it was reported that formal volunteer work was performed by 89.2 million Americans, worth an estimated $182.3 billion (Grube & Piliavin, 2000). In particular, most hospitals rely on volunteers to complete a multitude of tasks that both the clinical and the administrative stafFcannot fit into their schedules. Those individuals who manage and oversee volunteer programs face a t̂ vofold challenge: orienting, training, and monitoring volunteers as well as retaining these volunteers (Forsyth, 1999). There appears to be a cause and effect relationship between these two facets of volunteer program development. An effective orientation and training of a program's volunteers will engage participants in a way that results in volunteers' willingness to participate in the agency's volunteer program for a significant period of time. However, if there is a breakdown in one of these functions, it is not long before an organization's volunteer program starts to flounder.