Our feature articles are sourced from practitioners around the globe and seek to encourage new thinking, highlight innovative practice and stimulate debate in the world of effective volunteer engagement.
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Feature Articles
Everything shifted for Tracey O’Neill, CVA, the moment First Nations Elder Uncle Rob Patton said: "Colonial systems dehumanise us all." The comment reframed 25 years of O’Neill’s practice as a Volunteer Engagement Leader and an “expert” in the sector, and brought home the stark…
July 2026
Volunteers doing court-ordered community service at nonprofits, NGOs and charities was meant to be an alternative to fines and jail time. But there are nonprofits and probation officers offering another alternative: make a donation to a nonprofit and get a letter for the court…
July 2026
For more than a century, women’s leadership has been central to shaping the voluntary and community sectors in Aotearoa, New Zealand. This Engage feature by Cheryll Martin explores that evolution—from early grassroots organising and wartime mobilisation to today’s complex,…
April 2026
Due to the history of philanthropy, nonprofit and civic organizations have mostly built their engagement infrastructure around a single question: Is this person willing to serve? And that willingness to serve, author Breauna Dorelus argues, automatically generates moral…
April 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
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
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
Ruth Leonard gets right to the point: “I never intentionally planned to become a Volunteer Involvement professional. I wonder how many of us do?” In this Engage feature, Leonard continues this issue’s feature focus on why and how people choose life-long careers in Volunteer…
April 2025
In November 2024, Sue Kobar retired after 44 years of working in the volunteer sector in both paid and unpaid leadership roles around the globe. In this poignant, first-person account, Kobar highlights many of the key lessons she learned along the way, and describes the…
April 2025
When it comes to volunteerism in America, the good news is that it’s alive and well. Recent data from AmeriCorps and the U.S. Census Bureau shows a significant rebound in volunteerism in the last year, with 28.3 percent of Americans engaged in formal volunteering, up from a low…
January 2025
The COVID-19 pandemic proved a watershed moment for Volunteer Engagement the world over. For many, it marked the end of a time where volunteers were plentiful, funding readily available and program stability an almost certainty. COVID meant that many organisations had to…
January 2025
On any given day, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri welcomes thousands of guests through its doors. During their visits, guests might encounter several of the museum’s more than 400 volunteers at multiple points. These museum volunteers – ranging from…
October 2024
In today’s rapidly changing and unpredictable world, managing volunteers comes with distinct challenges. Volatile social and political climates, frequent technological disruptions, and the ongoing impact of global events such as pandemics and social movements have created an…
October 2024
Allyson Drinnon, a Volunteer Management expert and the author of this Engage feature, admits that she “stumbled into a career as a Volunteer Engagement professional without any formal training, and without a real plan.” Her professional career began at a large international…
July 2024
Part Four of a Four-Part Series
During their recent, three-part Engage series into Care Circles, author Todd McMullin with DanaLitwin and Joan Cardellino defined, described, taught and inspired readers of Engage with thepotential of harnessing this organic construct to…
July 2024
For 17 years, author Sam Clift has worked in Volunteer Engagement, in paid and volunteer roles across museums, arts and educational settings. In his role as the Volunteer Resource Manager for the London Transport Museum, he reported a volunteer satisfaction rating of 93 percent…
April 2024
From the Kitchen Table to the Board Room: Changes and Challenges With Volunteering in Sporting Clubs
Without volunteers, community sporting clubs in Australia would not exist. In 2022, according to reports, sport volunteers comprised the largest volunteer sector in Australia and contributed $4 billion annually in terms of labour to the Australian national economy.
But the…
April 2024