Revisited: The Professional Responsibility to Have and Share Opinions
In this issue, Voices revisits two favorite Volunteering Engagement “voices” with a
repost of a thought-provoking January 2017 column by the late Susan J. Ellis and Rob
Jackson. In this previously published column, Ellis (the Founder and former Editor of
this online journal) and Jackson (today’s Editor-in-Chief) profess that they are not trying
to exhort Volunteer Managers or instill guilt (well, maybe a tiny bit). Rather, these two
volunteerism vanguards explain why and how their profession must advocate for its
beliefs, and why their colleagues have a responsibility to seize opportunities to express
their educated opinions. Doing so, Ellis and Jackson argue, will help empower individual
Volunteer Engagement professionals and move the field forward. What a timely tribute
to Ellis, who passed away five years ago on February 24th and would have celebrated
her birthday on March 18th .
