What can be gained from Citizen Participation?

Over the last decades, the public’s interest in associative forms of democratic activity has increased, especially in the area of sustainability. One form, how this interest is expressed, is found in citizen-induced initiatives. As the name suggests, citizen-induced initiatives are launched by community members themselves and are aimed at channeling members’ efforts to address common concerns of the community. Additionally, participation gives members the opportunity to individually develop in multiple ways. However, limited empirical research has been conducted on how participation in citizen-induced initiatives contributes to personal growth and development, and how organisational characteristics and internal dynamics influence this relationship, so far. To answer these questions, this study presents the findings of 13 semi-structured telephone interviews with volunteers of food and sustainability themed initiatives. By employing systematic inductive analysis, five unique developmental dimensions and five organisational context dimensions are identified. From among these, this study recognizes organisational design to be highly impactful on personal development. In general, skill acquisition and professional capability development as well as psychological development are found to be the developmental dimensions most affected by the initiative’s organisational context.