Engage Library
This edition of “Along the Web” is designed to complement our Keyboard Roundtable discussion topic for this issue. What follows is a listing of a variety of discussion papers regarding current status, future trends and emerging developments. While most of these are relatively…
October 2002
"There is an essential integrity in a relationship with a volunteer that I find worth examining."
Sarah Elliston proceeds to analyze the fundamental differences between relationships with employees and relationships with volunteers:
"As I examine integrity as this simplicity…
October 2002
In the spring of 2001, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) contracted the services of an external consulting firm to conduct a review of its volunteer program. The research had two key purposes. The first was to explore how CBS might improve both the involvement, and the management,…
October 2002
Six months before it opened in July 2002, the Imperial War Museum North embarked upon an ambitious community volunteering programme, working with over 100 local residents – many from disadvantaged backgrounds. Volunteers worked towards vocational qualifications in the Museum,…
October 2002
Volunteer manager Laura Hamilton knew there had to be a better way to manage and schedule volunteers at George House Trust, the largest HIV Social Care Charity in the North West of England. So when her organization began to review rota management software packages to help manage…
October 2010
It’s common wisdom in the business world that “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” In this feature article, author Tony Goodrow proposes a method of measurement that gives a whole new yard stick to help demonstrate the successes of volunteer deployment in…
October 2010
Almost every nonprofit has volunteer leaders – people who are especially passionate about an organization’s mission and dedicate time, energy and talents to even the smallest tasks. Over time, studies have shown that organizations that offer these dedicated individuals…
October 2010
Can you put a monetary value on volunteering? What is a volunteer’s time and effort worth? This Research to Practice re-visits theses questions by studying a paper called “The Economic Value of Volunteering in Queensland,” by Dr. Duncan Ironmonger, Department of Economics, The…
October 2010
In 1978, when Katie Noyes Campbell and I wrote the first edition of By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, we included a chapter on the emergence of the profession of volunteer management. By 1990, when the second edition of By the People was published, the amount…
April 2001
One of the most basic and vital types of volunteering is citizen involvement in democratic political processes. All the elements of volunteering and volunteer management are here: recruitment, volunteer leadership, supervision, volunteer motivation, etc. Guest contributor Debbie…
April 2002
In this issue of "Along the Web" we focus on liability, risk management and other legal issues pertinent to volunteering. These legal areas tend to be very jurisdiction-specific. We've limited the list here to countries with a common background in the English system, but we've…
October 2000
This issue of Along the Web looks at a great variety of things: genetic influences on volunteering, involving volunteers from different ethnic and immigrant communities, the impact on various modes of housing on volunteer involvement and a wide assortment of other topics. All in…
October 2010
In their last Points of View, Steve and Susan offered a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to the current fad that suggests volunteer involvement would improve if we simply turned everything over to corporate human resources “professionals.” But in this follow-up column, the…
October 2010
A new type of volunteering is starting to attract media attention: micro-volunteering. It has gained momentum as a creative way to use mobile phones, but in reality it is much more than that. Mike Bright, the founder of Help from Home, a UK Web site focused entirely on micro-…
October 2010
When designing a training workshop or planning a conference, you probably consider using an icebreaker or two as part of your format. Before settling for conventional icebreakers that you have used time and again in the past, take a moment to read this Training Design. Author…
July 2010
Soroptimist International of the Americas is an international volunteer organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and throughout the world. Bucking the trend of other large service clubs, Soroptimist…
October 2005
It seems increasingly complex to offer what the different generations of volunteers want, particularly Baby Boomers and Millennials: high impact volunteer opportunities, a range of choices of positions, ways to apply their workplace skills and more. The good news is there is…
July 2010
e-Volunteerism’s Steve McCurley and Susan J. Ellis recently attended the 2010 National Conference on Volunteering and Service, where they were deluged with what is becoming an increasingly common message: “Don’t despair. For-profit corporations and their business wisdom are…
July 2010
Volunteering in New Zealand has developed significantly in recent years. Volunteering New Zealand (the national body serving the sector) is helping drive a new national volunteer management strategy to grow the profession across the country. At the same time, our Kiwi colleagues…
July 2010
One of the hardest things a volunteer manager may ever face is how to deal with an aging volunteer whose performance has begun to fall short of the organization’s expectations. In this special two-part series, e-Volunteerism tackles this important but often over-looked issue…
July 2010