Engage Library

Have you ever wondered what grantmakers and foundations look for when considering whether or not to give money to your group? In this excerpt from the new book, Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker, leading philanthropist Bill Somerville and writer Fred…

How do you manage volunteers who don’t choose to be in your organization, those volunteers who often show up after being “bullied” into service? In other words, how do you manage the non-volunteer volunteer? In this e-Volunteerism feature story, volunteerism expert and author…

In 1983, Jane Mallory Park wrote one of the early books on volunteerism: Meaning Well Is Not Enough: Perspectives on Volunteering.  In this book, Park discusses the legacy of volunteering that shaped what volunteers were doing in 1983, provided some solid, practical management…

Formal volunteer awards are designed to acknowledge the extraordinary achievements of extraordinary individuals, those volunteers who’ve extended themselves beyond expectation and contributed their services to an issue, project or cause. But it’s not easy to jump into the award…

This Research to Practice looks at a study of older volunteers and their volunteering profile. It is a study which uses panel data (that is, it tracks the same people over a period of time) between 1996 and 2004. The incorporation of panel data is quite useful, because so often…

In this issue, Points of View tackles an often elusive topic that nonetheless seems always challenging to volunteer managers: how to expand an organization’s leadership and find the right volunteers for the job.  In “Trolling for Leadership,” we look at using real recruitment…

Anticipating the huge number of Baby Boomers entering retirement in the next two decades, RSVP of North Central Iowa leaders decided to focus their attention on how to engage that cohort in volunteer service.  Attracting even a small percentage of the area’s approximately 22,000…

While we often focus on the good that volunteering does for recipients of service, there is increasing evidence that volunteering benetifts volunteers, too. One of these benefits, for instance, is increased work skills and experience that may lead to better prospects for…

Yad Sarah is an Israeli nationwide network of volunteers aiding needy, disabled and elderly people. The organization relies on volunteers and provides many essential services which are not covered by the government, such as lending medical equipment, day rehabilitation centers,…

The wall between church and state in the United States often extends to a wall of separation, ignorance or avoidance between secular and faith-based volunteering. In this deeply personal article for e-Volunteerism, author Karen Kogler encourages the dismantling of that wall. She…

In this Keyboard Roundtable, we’re casting a wide net to explore a number of volunteerism issues from the diverse perspectives of people involved in volunteering.  “From Whose Perspective?” will include a discussion of such important issues as: Employer-supported volunteering:…

For all sorts of legitimate and prejudicial reasons, a lot of organizations debate whether or not they want to welcome volunteers younger than age 14 (or even 16 or 18).  But history provides many examples of how even the youngest of citizens have had an impact by taking up a…

The face of volunteerism is changing globally and our field is being challenged to respond in new and innovative ways. How do we create programs that welcome and affirm the variety of experiences our volunteers bring to the table? How do we meet the needs of our organization and…

In this Research to Practice, we look at the latest survey of volunteering for England and Wales, with an emphasis on how volunteers view the organisation of volunteering. This survey, called Helping Out, looks once more at some questions from a 1997 survey. Some of the results…

In a crisis situation, a designated volunteer coordinator can take charge and handle the spontaneous outpouring of volunteers that typically accompanies the situation. This Points of View examines why those skilled in volunteer management can automatically tap into a proven…

This edition of Along the Web looks at online periodicals that focus on volunteerism – including magazines, newsletters, blogs, mailing lists and more. We organize the periodicals into specific categories, and give a summary of many that we feel are particularly useful and…

There’s been a lot of discussion about the volunteer habits of Generation Y – that slice of population born between 1981 and 1995.  Why is it that so many volunteer-involving organizations still struggle to attract this group?  In this Keyboard Roundtable, an international panel…

In this third e-Volunteerism article in our Sabotage series, the authors turn their focus to those not-for-profit organizations that engage and deploy millions of volunteers globally. They list 10 universal actions that not-for-profits engage in, and argue that these actions…

The term ‘engagement’ has gained appeal in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors to explain and understand relationship management with paid and voluntary staff. Yet little to no research has been done that focuses specifically on a volunteer’s engagement and how that…

In 1904, a young New York City court clerk named Ernest Coulter was seeing more and more boys come through his courtroom. He recognized that caring adults could help many of these kids stay out of trouble, and he set out to find volunteers. From this beginning (as described on…