Engage Library

As Leaders of Volunteer Engagement, we seek to make a difference to the agencies we work in and the communities we serve by recruiting community members to volunteer and make a difference. While we would like to believe we use processes that are equitable in making decisions…

Two and a half years after the emergence of COVID-19, the world has changed in many ways. Some things about today’s life would have been completely unimaginable in December 2019. To assume that volunteering is immune from this massive wave of change would be naive at best and…

Is there a new energy emerging in volunteering? And if so, why are these things happening now? Points of View authors Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink charge right into these questions with a nod to an array of initiatives from England, Scotland and Australia that all point to a…

In recent years, 70 percent of employees said they need to work at a company that offers giving and volunteering opportunities, yet only 10 percent of employees who worked at such companies participated in these programs. And in 2020, as we all know, a pandemic struck and the…

While Points of View argues that a new energy is emerging in volunteering, the picture isn’t so clear to Holly Daniels of MAVA (Minnesota Alliance for Volunteer Advancement). In this Engage feature, Daniels taps into her daily connections with Volunteer Engagement Leaders to…

The term “firing volunteers” can be a loaded one and create challenging ethical dilemmas for Leaders of Volunteers. Many say that their biggest challenge is dealing with “difficult volunteers” and that they are not comfortable in situations related to dismissing them. This…

In this Research to Practice, Laurie Mook looks at a new way of viewing the role of volunteer programs, that of a ‘third place.’ While our lives are often looked at as being divided between home (‘first place’) and work (‘second place’), urban sociology now proposes a ‘third…

In every aspect of volunteer management, Black Leaders of Volunteers have different professional experiences than their White colleagues. They are often a part of the communities we advocate to serve and can feel a fundamental tension between wanting to make a substantial impact…

As a Volunteer Leader, you are entrusted with the stewardship of the sensitive, personal and private information that you and your agency gather and hold about your volunteers. And while most of us know we need to take care of this information, just how many Volunteer Managers…

We read a lot about Volunteer Engagement and Leadership from the perspective of agencies who have paid Volunteer Managers – employees in place to oversee, manage and coordinate the efforts of the volunteer team who are committed to support the work of their agency. And in that…

As Volunteer Engagement Managers, we are in the business of recruiting outsiders and engaging them to their full potential. Though it’s difficult for us to admit, fundamental tenets of our approaches often introduce bias to framing opportunities, defining the audiences we intend…

Job design is typically a top-down process where organizations construct job descriptions that set expectations against which workers’ performances are measured and managed. Job crafting, on the other hand, is a bottom-up process where workers set the specifics of achieving a…

With more than two million Ukrainian people fleeing the country since February 24, a huge surge of humanitarian aid and organizational relief is providing critical support in the form of information, transport, food, water, medical care and shelter. This important Voices article…

In this Ethics, CCVA Board Director of Ethics Joy Parker will bolster the confidence of Leaders of Volunteer Engagement by bringing the ethical decision-making process to life with video and resources. An exploration of types of ethics combined with timely, relevant case studies…

As we transition from the pandemic, Points of View authors Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink note that there are more demonstrations of anger, rudeness and other uncivil behaviours. In this increasingly uncivil society, how far can and should organizations go to protect their…

Caring for the mental health of volunteers is vital, especially in these COVID times when so many are already dealing with depression and anxiety as a result of isolation and illness. In this timely and important Engage feature, Karen Knight, a Volunteer Management strategist…

Should the same level of governance that’s applied to staff in a health service – or any setting, for that matter – be applied to volunteers? Kerryn Mitchell of the Leaders of Health Volunteer Engagement (LOHVE) Network set out to answer this question shortly after she helped…

A new, international team of Volunteer Engagement experts from Australia, the USA, the UK and Israel begins a new era for Voices in this issue. They start by sharing their vision for this important Engage column, one that will now highlight voices from around the world through…

The beginning of a new year is like a blank page, allowing us to create something entirely new and embrace big shifts. Starting 2022 off with a New Year’s resolution to ‘Get Over Ourselves’ is just what Rob Jackson and Erin Spink suggest in their latest Points of View article.…

Social media was an imperfect tool before the pandemic. So we might not be too surprised to learn that civic organizations report mixed success as they worked through the pandemic and tried to find new ways to engage volunteers through social media. In this Research to Practice…