Engage Library

The issue of how formal our styles of volunteer management have become is not a new one.  From conference workshops to training sessions to books and articles, volunteer resource managers are being told not to make volunteering too formal an experience for people whilst in the…

“Along the Web” for this issue updates the first topic we examined back in 2000:  volunteer program liability and risk management. This is a topic that has received a lot of attention during the past five years, with a corresponding amount of materials produced to discuss it. …

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, sponsored by US Senator Paul Sarbanes and US Representative Michael Oxley, represents a major change to federal securities laws. It came as a response to the large corporate financial scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Arthur…

The recent demise of the Association for Volunteer Administration (AVA), affecting mainly Americans, has surfaced many issues around both the “profession” of volunteer management and the design of a possible association that would serve the needs of managers of volunteer…

Do we need another study on volunteer motives? Michael Callow’s work (published in the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing) argues that we do and that there is value in looking at volunteering among retirees. Too often, says Callow, we categorise…

Nonprofit organizations are required to identify funding streams and raise a significant amount of financial resources to provide services to clientele, operate facilities, and to pay staff.  At the same time, organizations conduct capital campaigns to raise a large amount of…

It has been said that public speaking is one of the number one fears of people.  Knowing that, how do volunteer program leaders attract volunteers to an organization’s public speaking program?  And then, what do volunteers need to know once they get there?  This article will…

Debbie Usiskin, an experienced volunteer programme manager in London, shares her personal exploration of how government requirements to ‘check’ (screen) volunteers provide contradictory and conflicting responsibilities and messages.  She raises important questions about finding…

There’s a phrase circulating that crops up periodically in speeches or books:  “volunteers are not a program.”  This concept can be traced back to an early article by Patty Bouse, Resource Development Specialist in the Nebraska Division of Social Services, in the Winter 1978…