Reflecting on 10 Years of the Volunteer Management Progress Report

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 in the annual Volunteer Management Progress Report (VMPR). Following the 2025 report, Johnson announced that she would be pausing her work on the VMPR. To commemorate a decade of the VMPR, we caught up with Johnson and her VMPR collaborator, Dr. Pam Kappelides, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Recreation Management from Latrobe University in Australia, on her podcast, Volunteer Nation. We discussed the origin of the VMPR, the process that went into carrying it out each year, and the topic of research in volunteer management more broadly. This Research to Practice shares insights from our conversation and is a must-read for anyone who has followed the VMPR since 2015 or who is interested in what research can look like in our field. 

Available March 27