ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a conceptual framework for assessing the impact of civic service and by exploring possible methodologies for some studies. It examines the different stake-holder groups involved in service and the various forms that impacts may take across these stakeholder groups. The chapter discusses possible research methods and examines issues that will need to be considered. It views that the concepts of volunteerism and civic service have sufficient elements in common to make it meaningful to draw on both sets of literature when exploring the issue of impacts. The chapter draws to the definition developed by Blankenberg, F in 1995: concerns long-term and sustainable changes introduced by a given intervention in the lives of beneficiaries. The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in volunteerism and civic service worldwide, perhaps best illustrated by the involvement of more than 130 national governments in the United Nations International Year of the Volunteer in 2001.
