‘What’s in it for me?’

This master thesis is a research on the motives of volunteers in the cultural heritage sector. With financial pressure rising due to subsidy cuts, philanthropy becomes more important. Volunteering is one form of philanthropy that enables organisations to make use of free labour supply. But to manage this labour supply better, we need to understand what drives volunteers to work for cultural heritage without rewards in monetary form. Previous research shows us different motives to volunteer, based on quantitative research. But no attention have been given to volunteers in the cultural heritage sector in particular. This paper aims to be an introductory research into this topic. The research was carried-out using a qualitative research strategy with a cross-sectional research design. It was conducted by talking with 12 volunteers varying in age from 5 cultural heritage organisations in Schiedam, the Netherlands by means of semi-structured interviews. The motives of these volunteers were collected and categorised in one of four quadrants. These quadrants were formed by the combination of two categories of motivation. The first categorisation is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The second is the distinction between the personal and interpersonal nature of the motivation. The results of this research show that volunteers in the cultural heritage sector are mostly motivated by intrinsic motivation, both of personal and interpersonal nature. Extrinsic motivation was hardly a reason for volunteers to provide free labour, personal being less important than interpersonal motivations.