Consumer Behavior Consumer Behaviour Why

Consumer Behavior

Consumer Behaviour

Why do people become involved in organizations like the Sierra Club?

Volunteerism and loyalty of organizations where no economic gain is possible has gained rapidly throughout the last several years due to several factors, the greatest being the revaluation many people are making in regard to their lives' purpose. The rise in memberships in volunteer organizations can be attributed primarily to the need many people have to help a cause they are concerned about, and in making that contribution, attain a high level of satisfaction from serving others and helping the less fortunate to attain their goals. The Sierra Club specifically is also well-known for its social events and the many opportunities for social networking that are available in the many chapters the club is comprised of globally. In addition to these first two factors of making a greater contribution and social interaction, many people join the Sierra Club to learn about a specific area or region of the country they live in, and to also find expert-level guides to assist them in exploring these areas on their own as well. The Sierra Club membership has in specific communities been singularly responsible for funding drives to alleviate land developers from completely overtaking natural landmarks not defined as national parks yet valuable for their aesthetic and historical significance. In addition to all of these factors mentioned, one of the most potent and mentioned ones is also the ability of the Sierra Club to create an atmosphere of achievement and honouring the voice of their membership and giving each member an opportunity to have their opinions, values and varying approaches to making contributions to the Sierra Club recognized and valued. The strength of the Sierra Club, over and above all other factors mentioned, is the ability to allow each member's voice to be heard, and each member to be valued for their contributions and interest. People join the Sierra Club for these reasons, yet these factors can also be extrapolated across many volunteer organizations.

2. What can a volunteer organization do to have an impact on global warming? Address this by answering the 3 questions:

a. should we focus our energy on individuals, interest groups (such as tourism interests), corporations, or governmental organizations?

b. what can we hope to accomplish with each target group (i.e., donations, public support, political pressure)?

c. How will we convince each target group to participate (what messages, what media)?

Clearly no single volunteer organization will be able to single-handedly make a significant impact on global warming. It is instead in the collaboration of many volunteer organizations that a significant impact can be made on global warming. The need for creating a high level of collaboration across volunteer organizations that first create a specific messaging strategy by each intended audience is critical. The messaging for corporations and governmental organizations needs to focus on a highly collaborative, shared responsibility for creating healthier, more balanced environment for future generations. Social responsibility as the foundation for ensuring collaboration between corporations, government organizations, and volunteer organizations can galvanize all of these organizations to move in a common direction with each other. Messaging for individuals needs to stress that every person counts in changing global warming's impact on the planet and that everyone shares in the responsibility in preserving the environment and its natural resources. Putting effort into creating highly collaborative relationships across other volunteer organizations, coordinating and enlisting the help of corporations and government organizations has the potential to be a highly effective strategy is achieving global warming-related objectives.

Gaining the commitment and use of resources across corporations and government organizations, including their funding of messages to the public, changing processes within their organizations to be more effective at alleviating global warming, and in short becoming strategic partners with volunteer organizations is critical. Having volunteer organizations' leaders meet with corporations' and government organizations' leaders to create strategic plans on how to better impact global warming and also raise awareness of this issue globally could be highly effective.

Funding, political cooperation and collaboration, and the ability to define messaging strategies across all each consumer demographic is also critical. Underscoring the collaboration between volunteer organizations, government agencies and organizations, and corporations is the need to also create a shared resource trust fund to finance strategies to bring both global warming change and also raise awareness significantly over time.