Engage Library
Colleen Kelly suggests that volunteer management has taken the road more travelled – the easier road – because when we began the process of formalizing volunteer involvement we did so mainly from the point of view of organizations recruiting volunteers to “fill positions”…
October 2004
Steve and Susan react to recent news stories and observations that perpetuate some frustrating thinking about volunteers. Volunteering is either undervalued or over-valued, elevated to selfless sainthood or seen as a means to the end of teaching the middle class to love others.…
October 2004
When the 1997 National Survey for Volunteering in the UK was published, it appeared to show that young peoples’ regard and enthusiasm for volunteering was in decline. Responding to this, the Institute for Volunteering Research produced the report ‘What Young People Want from…
October 2004
Meetings, no matter what format is used, take considerable time. I hear many stories about the difficulty organizations are experiencing as they recruit volunteers for the board, a committee or a special project team because of the number of meetings required or because these…
October 2004
In 1980, VOLUNTEER: The National Center for Citizen Involvement (predecessor of the Points of Light Foundation) published Exploring Volunteer Space: The Recruiting of a Nation, by Ivan H. Scheier. As has been the case so often with Ivan’s writing, the book was way ahead of its…
October 2004
Whilst research and interest in all aspects of volunteering and the third sector generally have grown exponentially since the 1990s, both internationally and in Australia, Australian historians have been ‘missing in action’ – they have not generally been part of this explosion…
July 2004
The Samaritans are a UK-based charity that provides confidential emotional support to those who are depressed or suicidal. Volunteers provide this service through 24-hour crisis-lines and e-mail response centers. One of the keystones of The Samaritans philosophy is that their…
July 2004
Have you ever wondered where researchers find the statistical data that allows them to determine the long-term effects of volunteering on one's health or on one's career? Or questioned how frequently the Independent Sector or the Bureau of Labor Statistics conduct surveys on…
July 2004
It seems counter-intuitive for most people working in volunteering that such participation should be bad for your health. A new research paper in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health claims just this, flying in the face of much other evidence. Is volunteering bad for…
July 2004
Nametags are your best friends – especially in volunteer situations where new people constantly come and go. They provide outlets for communication not unlike front porches, in that they make people less uncertain and more approachable. What’s more, with the disclosure of…
July 2004
For centuries, women relied on one another to assist in the labor and birthing process – as they still do in many countries of the world. As medicine advanced, midwives became more formally educated, but eventually doctors dominated childbirth care. First both female friends and…
July 2004
This issue of Along the Web highlights various volunteer recruitment campaigns utilizing print, radio, and television public service announcements (PSAs). We thought you’d like to see what your competition is doing and plan accordingly. The examples here are mainly from the US…
July 2004
A never-before published draft excerpt from Carol Weisman’s upcoming book, Raising Charitable Children: Kids Who Give as Good as They Get (anticipated for publication in late 2005). The chapter previewed here explains the concept – and how-to’s – of a “Joy and Sadness Meeting”…
July 2004
In this issue of “Along the Web” we’ll look at Internet resources for volunteers in arts, culture, museums, and heritage programs. This is all part of an effort to lend a bit of class to our otherwise pedestrian existence. Items are grouped into sections:
articles and technical…
April 2004
The Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta, Canada has a dedicated volunteer corps that until recently was comprised mainly of adults who had been serving the Museum for 20 to 30 years. Little thought had been given to succession planning, although the volunteers were clearly aging…
April 2004
Most of us have seen board members separate their collective, decision-making role on the board from their individual, working role in other volunteer capacities. And we know that board members who fail to make or remember the distinction can be very problematic. The level of…
April 2004
Hong Kong has a long history of developing volunteer services. People from all walks of life are familiar with the concept of volunteerism while a wide variety of specific volunteer opportunities have been opening up, ranging from management roles to the execution of specific…
April 2004
The UK think tank Civitas just announced a new publication with the intriguing title of Conspicuous Compassion: Why Sometimes It Really Is Cruel to Be Kind, by Patrick West. According to reviewers, West feels that people who wear colored ribbons to show empathy with worthy…
April 2004
Is Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?
Stephan Meier and Alois Stutzer
Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, University of Zurich
February 2004
Some things said about volunteering seem intuitively right; such as, volunteering can make you happy. Research such as the…
April 2004
Brenda Clifton of the Volunteer Center of the Pikes Peak Region offer this fun group exercise to enliven volunteer recruitment training. Participants are given one-half of a pair of job titles and have to find their matching half. The catch is that group 2 has traditional,…
April 2004