The hardest part of my job is to say ‘No’ to volunteers: An exemplary model of volunteer management within a food rescue organisation

Whilst most not for profit organisations are struggling to attract, train, utilise and retain their volunteering workforce, there are some organisations having the opposite problem—a surplus of volunteering labour that they have to say ‘No’ to. This paper deploys an exploratory case study approach in investigating the volunteer management processes of an Australian food rescue organisation and discovers that its success is largely attributable to its social enterprise model of volunteer management. This study is the first to provide empirical evidence of a social enterprise model. It advances the volunteer management literature by extending the theoretical model, uncovering additional employee dimensions and identifying its major challenges.