Abstract: Encouraging local volunteers in rural areas to actively participate in volunteer service and stimulating the “endogenous” volunteer force in rural communities are crucial for establishing and improving a volunteer service system with Chinese characteristics. This study focuses on the practice of the “credit volunteer points system” in R County in S Province, and examines its effective mechanisms for motivating rural local volunteers to engage in community volunteer service. The findings reveal that reputation incentive in volunteer service management is essential to stimulate the participation and enthusiasm of rural local volunteers, as it helps to integrate the incentive effects of volunteer driving forces at multiple levels, such as individual volunteers, rural communities and grassroots governments. Specifically, this system consists of three parts: the reputation marking mechanism, which establishes the basis for the visibility of reputation incentives; the reputation distribution mechanism, which offers legitimacy guarantees; and the reputation competition mechanism, which adapts to rural society and maintains its reproduction.

Key words: Rural local volunteers, Volunteer drive, Reputation incentive