Engage Library
Are you helping to develop the next generation of volunteers? Today’s youth are tomorrow’s adult volunteers—if they grow up with the empathy and mindset to contribute their time and talents to their communities. Unfortunately, some studies have shown that contemporary youth…
April 2019
“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…
April 2019
Recruitment is an integral part of the success of volunteer engagement departments in almost every organization. But when this task is being coordinated by one person sitting in an office space, it can sometimes feel like an impossible job. In a perfect world, that person…
April 2019
In this Voices, co-editor Tracey O’Neill reviews a new book called The Disruptive Volunteer Manager by well-known volunteer manager Meridian Swift. As O’Neill explains, the new book lays out six steps to increase awareness of volunteers and to try and elevate volunteerism by…
April 2019
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…
July 2019
In this Points of View, Erin R. Spink and Rob Jackson share their thoughts on the words and phrases that no longer serve the volunteer engagement profession – and, they argue, could actually hurt us. They also present and review new ways to communicate about the volunteer…
April 2019
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...
January 2019
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…
April 2019
A core goal of all leaders of volunteers is to ensure that volunteers have a great experience. If you are directly managing the volunteers yourself, that goal can be structured and achievable. But in larger organisations, where the responsibility for managing and supporting…
January 2019
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"Volunteers in the food redistribution revolution" would have been an unlikely Along the Web topic even just a few years ago. But today there is an undeniable and growing public awareness about the shocking amount of food that’s wasted and sent to landfills, despite still…
January 2019
The voices of international hospice and palliative care volunteers come through clearly in a new book, The Changing Face of Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care. Published in mid-2018 by Oxford University Press and edited by Ros Scott and Steven Howlett, it presents an…
January 2019
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…
January 2019
Volunteer resource managers leave their jobs at a rate of almost double that of the nonprofit sector in general (Ertas, 2018). Turnover of volunteer resource managers is a significant issue due to the wide-reaching direct and indirect economic and social consequences for…
January 2019
The last few years have been challenging for non-profits. Fundraising and safeguarding scandals, accusations of excessive executive pay, concerns over political bias – the list of controversies has grown, negatively impacting the public’s trust and confidence in good causes.…
January 2019
Humor is personal, but so is learning. And humor can be a welcomed training tool when it comes to training.
In this Training Designs, Erin R. Spink interviews Tane Danger from the Theater of Public Policy (known as T2P2), an innovative group that seeks to enhance learning…
October 2018
This past August 2018, Starbucks, the coffee giant, and the non-profit organization Points of Light launched a six-month pilot program that allows Starbucks employees to get their full pay check while volunteering at selected non-profits for half the work week. Before long,…
October 2018
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…
October 2018
In our last issue, Research to Practice focused on episodic volunteers, as one-time or short-term volunteering is often called. This time, e-Volunteerism looks at a study of super-volunteers, defined as “individuals who volunteer 10 or more hours per week with a single…
October 2018
As volunteer managers, we want to influence others to embrace the values of our organization. We want them to understand the uniqueness of the mission, the needs of clients, and the importance of volunteers’ contributions. We want to encourage them to join us and to support our…
October 2018
Points of View authors Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink were recently inspired by a Canadian article that highlighted the coming funding shortfalls due to an escalating reliance on the services non-profits offer. In this Points of View, they take a page from this article to…
October 2018