Full dataset for: Diversifying environmental volunteers by engaging with online communities

1.         Environmental volunteering can benefit participants and nature through improving physical and mental wellbeing while encouraging environmental stewardship. To enhance achievement of these outcomes, conservation organisations need to reach different groups of people to increase participation in environmental volunteering. This paper explores what engages communities searching online for environmental volunteering.

2.         We conducted a literature review of 1032 papers to determine key factors fostering participation by existing volunteers in environmental projects. We found the most important factor was to tailor projects to the motivations of participants. Also important were:  promoting projects to people with relevant interests; meeting the perceived benefits of volunteers and removing barriers to participation.

3.         We then assessed the composition and factors fostering participation of the NatureVolunteers’s online community (n = 2216) of potential environ...