Our feature articles are sourced from practitioners around the globe and seek to encourage new thinking, highlight innovative practice and stimulate debate in the world of effective volunteer engagement.
Do you ever feel like you’re treading water in this vast volunteer management ocean? Struggling against perceptions of what you do that simply don’t match the reality? As Meridian Swift writes, “I know I did. It took getting out and drying off to uncover what was missing in…
Much that’s been said about the motivations and outcomes of skills based volunteering (SBV) has been written from the corporation’s perspective. We know less about what motivates or what it takes to engage a SBV program from a nonprofit point of view.
In this e-Volunteerism…
In this e-Volunteerism feature, the story of volunteers at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo shows how and why your organization can empower volunteers to help tell your story. As writer Karie Hajek explains, volunteers are often referred to as the “heart” of an organization and…
Although hundreds of thousands of people volunteer with the National Park Service each year, the agency has been slow to engage volunteers in emergency management. In this feature story by Francis Shawn Bawden, who worked for the NPS for nine years, the lessons learned at…
In this powerful first-person story, volunteer manager Megan Cassar reveals her traumatic experience with postnatal anxiety and depression following the birth of her first child, an illness that went undiagnosed for 18 months. Her struggle to successfully recover led Cassar…
An increasing number of hospitals and other healthcare environments are now beginning to incorporate integrative health interventions into their settings to meet the stress or symptom management needs of both patients and employees. These practices often include massage,…
“After 12 years at the helm of a leading faith-based volunteering charity, I have decided to retire.” So writes Leonie Lewis, MBE, who has been Director of the Jewish Volunteering Network (JVN) since its inception in the UK in 2007. Having recently chosen to retire from her…
How do adults learn? There are six principles behind the answer to that question, and e-Volunteerism (now Engage) feature writers and educators Erica Letourneau and Barbara Lombardi explain each one in their story, “A Focus on Relevance: Applying Andragogy to Volunteer…
With sadness we share the news that our editor in chief, colleague, and friend, Energize, Inc. President Susan J. Ellis, passed away February 24, 2019. Read more...
With technological advances growing at an ever-frantic pace, questions and concerns have been raised about the intersection of technology and volunteers. Are technological advances such as robotics, artificial intelligence, drones, and computers likely to displace many…
Volunteers make great volunteer managers, but their value in these roles isn’t always recognised. This feature article by Tom Freeland explores the benefits that ‘volunteer’ volunteer managers or ‘lead’ volunteers can bring to an organization. He also explores the fears an…
The devastating impacts of hurricanes and floodwaters are well known throughout the world, including nearly every region of the United States. In September 2013, a catastrophic amount of flooding besieged Boulder, Colorado, when almost a year’s amount of rain fell in just a…
Managing volunteer programs can be a whirlwind of risk management, policies, and procedures, with mounds of credentialing and more red tape than we’d like to admit. Jumping through hoops can become a necessary skill for volunteers to meet all of the criteria required to…
After more than 30 years of working directly in a variety of volunteer leadership roles, Andy Fryar now works with volunteer involving organisations to assist them in establishing cloud-based software solutions. Along the way, Fryar has come to recognise that many volunteer…
Volunteer Engagement Professionals (VEPs) commonly feel underpaid and undervalued and believe that their work is misunderstood. In times like these, they often turn to organizations like the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration (MAVA) for support, education, and…
When human beings have new experiences, new synaptic pathways forge in our brains. We become alert to new ideas and we can be guided to new understandings and different behavior.
In this e-Volunteerism feature, Angela Parker – the co-founder of a global agency called Realized…
What’s one way to increase the effectiveness of an organization that wants to involve volunteers in meaningful ways? In this e-Volunteerism feature, volunteer management experts Melanie Merrill and Ruth Leonard of Macmillan Cancer Support, London, write that in order to…
