Limits to Participation: Neighbourhood-Based Volunteer Initiatives and Contradictions of the Dutch Participation Society

The Dutch participation society, like similar programmes elsewhere, aims to shift care responsibilities to households and communities, with the state only acting as a carer or last resort. In this paper, we investigate whether volunteer neighbourhood-based initiatives are capable of delivering various forms of care: general assistance, mobility services and sustainability efforts. Interviews with 54 individuals active in nine initiatives in the north of the Netherlands inquired about the motivations of volunteers to become and remain active, and what influenced potential decisions to stop. The results show that important incentives to start volunteering are social networks, a sense of duty and self-interest and a desire for experience and fulfilment. Volunteers appreciated the sense of fulfilment from social networks and providing support, and the informal nature of volunteer work. Volunteers responded negatively to tendencies of formalisation, the absence of challenges or personal friction with other participants. We argue that there is a central contradiction for care and support delivered by neighbourhood-based initiatives: the levels of formalisation necessary to provide structured high-quality care and support run the risk of alienating volunteers. Either initiatives remain informal to maintain volunteer satisfaction but are unlikely to deliver structured care to people in need, or they professionalise at the risk of dissatisfied volunteers.