Meaningful volunteering is one way for employees with high work demands to recover from stressful work situations. Employees who volunteer show higher levels of positive organizational citizenship behaviors than employees who don’t volunteer. At the same time, many nonprofit…
In this Points of View, Rob Jackson and Erin Spink sit down (well, Rob stood up!) to chat on video about all things volunteer engagement and 2020. In what was an exceptional year for the whole world, volunteer engagement professionals faced new challenges and opportunities of a…
Have you ever wondered what it's like to consult in the volunteer engagement space? Perhaps you have even considered exploring it as a career? In this feature article, volunteer engagement consultant and change management expert Christine Stankowski looks at the benefits and…
In this issue of Research to Practice, Laurie Mook reviews a study that explores the question, ‘Why do volunteers choose the particular organization they do to volunteer for?’ The researchers in the study use a marketing perspective, where the volunteer’s choice of organization…
What is Engage? How can we best describe its new, exciting content – including two new columns called Ethics and Ahead of the Curve? What happens now to e-Volunteerism.com? Can the Volunteer Engagement community continue to access content from this beloved professional journal?…
In this Points of View, co-authors Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink readily admit that few will be sad to see the year 2020 end. But, they write, “if nothing else, the pandemic and its impacts on leaders of volunteers and volunteerism have demonstrated more than ever the power and…
In life, sometimes we know when we are ready for something and sometimes we don’t. So much of life, it can be argued, is knowing things in hindsight.
In this Engage feature, Adam Janes explores how nonprofit professionals knew we weren’t ready for something as disruptive at…
In this inaugural article for the new Ethics section, authors Katherine H. Campbell, former Executive Director of CCVA, and Ethics Editor Erin R. Spink present an introduction to ethics for the Volunteer Engagement profession. In the first of their two-part presentation,…
For decades, running a strong volunteer program meant clearly defining roles and responsibilities, sourcing the right volunteers and managing consistent project delivery. Today, the same considerations remain true, but the practices of delivering them in a modern setting have…
In this tribute Voices, co-editors Allyson Drinnon and Tracey O'Neill provide the first comprehensive description of the newly created Ellis Archive on the Professional Leadership of Volunteers, an important and exceptional resource for the entire field. Now offered through the…
Susan J. Ellis was more than a passionate advocate for the change that great volunteering could make, and more than a passionate voice for the influence that Volunteer Engagement professionals could make while forging that change.
She ‘walked the walk’ and ‘talked the talk.’ She…
Susan J. Ellis may be best remembered for her prolific writing and famous "Hot Topics," her personal musings on important issues in the volunteer engagement field. But for many people, their fondest memories and biggest 'aha' moments came from Ellis’ work as a trainer. This…
Thirty-five years ago, Susan J. Ellis published an article in the Journal of Voluntary Action (now Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly) entitled “Research on volunteerism: What needs to be done.” Ellis mused – in 1985 – that the only subject at that time that seemed to…
This special issue devoted to e-Volunteerism’s Co-Founder Susan J. Ellis begins with a feature by Rob Jackson, the Journal’s new Editor-in-Chief. In this article, Jackson reflects on the legacy of Ellis and her life’s work, including how and why she started the profession’s…
Twenty years ago, colleagues Steve McCurley and Susan J. Ellis together founded e-Volunteerism, which was at the time the first and only electronic publication for the volunteer management field. In this poignant Points of View, McCurley reflects on their shared vision and quest…
"Social prescribing" is a means for tackling poor health without, or alongside, prescribing pharmaceutical drugs. Schemes for social prescribing cover a wide array of activities and programmes, ranging from physical activities such as dance classes through culture programmes…
Reimbursing volunteers – a contradiction in terms or an evolving strategy? In search of clarity, a team at Colorado’s Community Resource Center (CRC) started digging into an issue that has clearly emerged as a critical and lingering one in the volunteering field. These team…
Volunteers can make the world a better place - but it behoves us to ask the question, "Better for whom?" In this Points of View, Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink put this question front and center by challenging leaders of volunteer engagement to look at volunteering in real…
