Abstract:

Volunteerism as a social phenomenon contributes to the expansion of citizens' participation in public life and involves different social groups in solving social problems. All types of voluntary activities play an important role in the development of the EU and Russia. Social and economic changes since the end of the twentieth century, along with the spread of the Internet, have affected the prevalence of global trends, including volunteerism. This is due to the use of information technologies in various spheres and the penetration of the Internet into people's daily lives. Information becomes available to a wider number of people.

Information technologies has an impact on changing the management of volunteering in non-profit organizations and universities. The purpose of this article is to determine the specifics of information dissemination about volunteerism in Russia and Croatia. Key research questions: what channels of information dissemination among volunteers are used by volunteer centers in Russia and Croatia? How do differences in information dissemination effect on volunteers work in non-profit and educational organizations?

Theoretical ideas. We analyze non-profit organizations and the volunteer community through the prism of management theories. In this context, researchers most often study the process of recruiting, retaining, motivating volunteers and building communication with them (Kim, M., Chelladurai, P., Trail, G., 2007; Hidalgo, M., Moreno, P., 2009; Alfes, K., Shantz, A., Bailey, C., 2016).

Data and methods. The research is based on data from a survey of two volunteer centers’ members in different countries - Russia (Ekaterinburg) and Croatia (Zagreb) (target sample, N=802). To determine the channels for information dissemination about volunteer activities, we asked the question "How do you get information about volunteer projects?". Using the Mann-Whitney criterion, we found statistically significant differences in the channels of information dissemination from different countries. The report also used the following methods: analysis of internal documents and public information resources of NGOs, content analysis of volunteer centers’ public pages on Facebook, Instagram and Vkontakte.

Conclusions. Volunteer organizations in Russia and Croatia use different channels for distributing information to potential and actual volunteers. The high information activity of Russian citizens forces non-profit organizations to go to social networks for spreading information about their activities. The more traditional form of obtaining information about non-profit organizations and their activities remains in Croatia. Volunteers receive information through the official website and personal contacts. It should be noted that such differences in the dissemination of information indicate different ways of working with volunteers.

Keywords:

Volunteering, volunteer centers, resource centers, mass media, information technologies.