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Engage Library
In recent years, democracy around the world has been declining. According to one report, the “global index score is at just 5.17 out of 10, its lowest point in the history of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Democracy Index.” Understanding why and where democracy is…
January 2026
For the past 10 years, Tobi Johnson, MA, CVA, consultant and founder of VolunteerPro, has surveyed leaders of Volunteer Engagement from around the world about a wide variety of topics, including the state of the profession and specific challenges. Johnson published her findings…
January 2026
Volunteer programs are modernizing at the same time volunteerism itself is changing. Across sectors, leaders are coordinating more complex schedules, more diverse volunteer motivations and higher expectations for impact reporting, often with fewer administrative resources. It…
January 2026
The only things that are constant, apparently, are taxes and ethical issues involving volunteers. Join Ethics Co-Editors Erin McLean and Erin R. Spink as they review recent news stories involving ethical challenges with volunteers and also unpack the ethics at play.Available…
January 2026
Why is it important for all communities to have access to green spaces? How does it feel to make sure one's culture is represented outdoors? How can organizers create space to talk about both the intersection and inequities surrounding homelessness in parks or access to food?…
January 2026
Since its charter in 1983, the Mississauga Cooksville Lions Club in Ontario, Canada had always been a high performer with significant impact in the community. However, it was not immune to the volunteer participation challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic forced on social purpose…
January 2026
Paul P. Falkowski’s journey in Volunteer Engagement caught him unaware. And in this very personal Engage feature story, Falkowski describes how a one-off, musical performance in a nursing home turned into a lifelong volunteering passion that he never would have predicted,…
January 2026
In this first-person Engage feature, Sharleen Tarnate-Nguyen, the Volunteer Engagement Manager for the San Diego Humane Society, gives readers an impassioned account of her journey to implement an organization-wide philosophy shift toward diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)…
October 2025
Research, as well as practical experience, points to the myriad benefits of volunteering. For some individuals, volunteering may provide an opportunity for learning, particularly among younger volunteers looking to build lasting skills to enhance professional and personal lives…
October 2025
Volunteer infrastructure has always represented a certain tension between readiness and potential. To leaders in the field, structures are developed to safeguard the individuals they serve. However, volunteering infrastructure is prone to lengthy processes of onboarding and…
October 2025
In this Ethics column, author and Volunteer Engagement professional Kari Astles examines the ethics of engaging staff as volunteers. This common practice raises a number of ethical considerations – namely, whether staff can or should volunteer and, if so, how and when to…
October 2025
In September 2024, TAVA’s Leadership Committee made the difficult decision to shut down the unincorporated Toronto Association for Volunteer Administration (TAVA). The committee members quickly discovered that this wasn’t an isolated incident but one in a series of closures that…
October 2025
In Points of View, authors Erin R. Spink and Rob Jackson look back to a 2003 Points of View column from Engage founders Steve McCurley and the late Susan J. Ellis that posed this question: Is All Volunteering Created Equal?
The authors admit that when they started…
October 2025
In Part 2 of Ethics, co-section Editor Erin R. Spink continues to explore how to build an Ethical Volunteering Policy in the workplace. After writing in Part 1 about the considerations and questions that surface when creating such a policy, Spink now presents…
July 2025
In 1985, Susan J. Ellis published an article in the Journal of Voluntary Action Research (later republished by Energize in 2015) about the state of research on volunteerism and volunteer management entitled “Research on Volunteerism…What Needs to Be Done.” In her piece, Ellis…
July 2025
Volunteering can mean many things to different audiences – acts of kindness, scheduled shifts, mentoring, fundraising. But there is one category of public service that often stands alone: disaster relief. Some disasters give us warning, others happen so quickly that our ability…
July 2025
Across sectors — from education to healthcare, community services to environmental action —volunteers are often engaged in roles defined by convenience rather than impact. This Voices article by Isabella Oliver calls for a fundamental shift in how organizations approach…
July 2025
Struggling with conversations around volunteer retention at your organization? Is retention a talking point you have not been asked to dive into? Is it one you avoid? Or perhaps retention is something you have not previously considered for your volunteer roles?
To many Leaders…
July 2025
Laurence Bolotin, an experienced Volunteer Engagement Leader with a background in higher education, nonprofit leadership and board development, is absolutely convinced: “Generation Z is ready to serve and they can change the world. But they’re doing it differently.”
Born between…
July 2025
In this Points of View, co-editors Erin R. Spink and Rob Jackson conduct a video debate on a topic that they readily admit they need input to resolve: Are National Volunteer Weeks fit for purpose? Indeed, what are they for? What have they achieved? And frankly, are they even…
July 2025