Engage Library
The term “firing volunteers” can be a loaded one and create challenging ethical dilemmas for Leaders of Volunteers. Many say that their biggest challenge is dealing with “difficult volunteers” and that they are not comfortable in situations related to dismissing them. This…
July 2022
As a Volunteer Leader, you are entrusted with the stewardship of the sensitive, personal and private information that you and your agency gather and hold about your volunteers. And while most of us know we need to take care of this information, just how many Volunteer Managers…
April 2022
We read a lot about Volunteer Engagement and Leadership from the perspective of agencies who have paid Volunteer Managers – employees in place to oversee, manage and coordinate the efforts of the volunteer team who are committed to support the work of their agency. And in that…
April 2022
As Volunteer Engagement Managers, we are in the business of recruiting outsiders and engaging them to their full potential. Though it’s difficult for us to admit, fundamental tenets of our approaches often introduce bias to framing opportunities, defining the audiences we intend…
April 2022
Job design is typically a top-down process where organizations construct job descriptions that set expectations against which workers’ performances are measured and managed. Job crafting, on the other hand, is a bottom-up process where workers set the specifics of achieving a…
April 2022
With more than two million Ukrainian people fleeing the country since February 24, a huge surge of humanitarian aid and organizational relief is providing critical support in the form of information, transport, food, water, medical care and shelter. This important Voices article…
April 2022
As we transition from the pandemic, Points of View authors Rob Jackson and Erin R. Spink note that there are more demonstrations of anger, rudeness and other uncivil behaviours. In this increasingly uncivil society, how far can and should organizations go to protect their…
April 2022
Caring for the mental health of volunteers is vital, especially in these COVID times when so many are already dealing with depression and anxiety as a result of isolation and illness. In this timely and important Engage feature, Karen Knight, a Volunteer Management strategist…
January 2022
Should the same level of governance that’s applied to staff in a health service – or any setting, for that matter – be applied to volunteers? Kerryn Mitchell of the Leaders of Health Volunteer Engagement (LOHVE) Network set out to answer this question shortly after she helped…
January 2022
A new, international team of Volunteer Engagement experts from Australia, the USA, the UK and Israel begins a new era for Voices in this issue. They start by sharing their vision for this important Engage column, one that will now highlight voices from around the world through…
January 2022
Social media was an imperfect tool before the pandemic. So we might not be too surprised to learn that civic organizations report mixed success as they worked through the pandemic and tried to find new ways to engage volunteers through social media. In this Research to Practice…
January 2022
The sudden withdrawal of many formal volunteering opportunities at the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020 cast a spotlight on the nature of volunteer work. In many cases, important services were suddenly curtailed while still other organizations pivoted volunteer roles…
January 2022
If you’ve ever been in the market for software and your organization has an IT person, there’s a good chance you’ve been advised to “pick something with integrations.” That’s because software integrations aren’t just a nice-to-have feature – they’re your silent assistants. Why?…
January 2022
In May 2018, after a long and established career working in the areas of law and social advocacy, Kim Roots became a Coordinator of Volunteers for the very first time. As a newcomer to the Volunteer Engagement and Leadership field, Roots was able to view her new role through the…
October 2021
Leaders of volunteers come from many varied backgrounds and, between them, have taken almost every twist and turn possible on their way into the profession. In this Voices, we hear about the journey of Laurence Bolotin, who attended a graduate class in volunteer engagement…
October 2021
In this issue's Research to Practice, reviewer Laurie Mook looks at a very interesting study of online volunteer mentors. Researchers compared the quality of volunteering between four different online mentor groups who participated on the same platform in the same activities:…
October 2021
In Volunteer Engagement circles, we all too often hear tales of woe about minimal support or a lack of understanding of what we do. This sometimes leads us to view the world from a ‘glass half empty’ perspective, where we play the victim and not the victor!
In this article,…
October 2021
Digitally-enabled volunteer management is not simply volunteer coordination. Rather, it is the experience of facilitating the relationship between the volunteer and the organization, initially and over the lifetime of engagement. It's important to note that designing and…
October 2021
The global pandemic – along with raised consciousness on diversity, equity and inclusion – has forced many organizations to refocus, change directions and reflect on a range of issues. For example, some are re-evaluating how they serve their community, from both a procedural and…
October 2021
The Year 2021 was certainly another challenging year in Volunteer Engagement as we continued to face novel and complex situations. A number of these challenges were notable enough to make it into the headlines. This final Ethics column for an unprecedented year takes a look back…
October 2021