This paper explores the suitability of a conceptual social marketing model, the MOA (motivation, opportunity and ability) framework (Rothschild, 1999), to volunteering to determine whether it has the potential to promote volunteering with its associated socially desirable benefits. In doing so, the individual components of the model are discussed from a social marketing perspective and communalities in the volunteering research highlighted. This discussion culminates in the presentation of an adapted MOA framework, the practical implications of which for volunteer-involving organisations are briefly discussed and an agenda for future research proposed.