From Service to Sector: Understanding Pathways into Nonprofit and Public Sector Employment

Nonprofit, public, and private employees display theoretically and empirically distinct characteristics. An important branch of this research investigates differences in prosocial behaviors given a sector of employment, but findings often model prosocial habits as the outcome and rely on cross-sectional data. This study adds to extant literature by hypothesizing that early-adulthood volunteering serves as a pathway for emerging-career nonprofit and public employment. We utilize regression and duration analysis on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 and find that millennials who display early-adulthood volunteering are significantly more likely to report emerging-career employment in the nonprofit sector. Furthermore, millennials with no work experience in nonprofits before their emerging-career phase demonstrate faster rates of entry into a nonprofit if they reported early-adulthood volunteering. We fail to find similar relationships for public employees. Our conclusions speak to the recruitment and retention of nonprofit employees while also providing possible caveats to understanding other-oriented public employees.

Recommended citation: Marrese, T. & Handy, F. (2025). From Service to Sector: Understanding Pathways into Nonprofit and Public Sector Employment. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.