The Impact of Modern Volunteering on Local Community Experiences: The Moderating Role of Volunteering-related Ambivalence

Modern volunteerism has undergone a broad transformation, which has made episodic and online forms stem. This study investigates (a) how traditional, episodic, and online volunteering affect volunteers' local community experiences – meant as Sense of Community (SoC), Sense of Re-sponsible Togetherness (SoRT), and social generativity – and (b) the moderating role of volunteering-related ambivalence in this. The results show that only traditional volunteering has a positive impact on SoC, while online volunteering harms social generativity. Ambivalence plays a complex role: it weakens the positive impact of traditional volunteerism on SoC, yet it reverses and strengthens the effect on social generativity when it comes to online one-making it positive. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.