Engage Library

Minnesota is pleased to announce the beginning of a new statewide association for people in the field of volunteer administration, the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration (MAVA), affiliating thirteen previously-independent professional networks (and growing). This…

The refrain is heard time and time again in the groups and organizations of modern society. Schools have been crying out for ages about the shortage of math and science teachers. Corporations have been wailing about the lack of skilled workers. Community issues go un-addressed…

The fiasco of the United States Presidential Election 2000 in Florida made a mockery of a democracy's fundamental activity: voting.  Mountains of paperwork analyzing what went wrong with election technology or election laws have accumulated in election offices, legislatures and…

At a time of world crisis , this paper calls for proponents of volunteerism to join together in a rethink of priorities and programs. Managers of volunteer programs and volunteers are challenged to take a big picture approach and see volunteerism as a powerful tool in…

The Internal Battle by Steve McCurley Niccolo Machiavelli is famous for writing a book entitled The Prince, which is about gaining and exercising Power. "Power" is something that you don't hear discussed much among volunteer managers, since most of them don't have it. In fact,…

Steven Farmer and Donald Fedor have taken a look at factors which make volunteers decide to continue and increase their contribution of volunteer time and effort to a particular organization. This issue is a serious one to effective involvement of volunteers, since the…

The activities in this training module are intended to foster a sense of teamwork and collaboration among paid and unpaid staff, among leadership and members, and in situations where management, paid staff, and volunteers participate equally. The activities may be used…

Print periodicals in our field emerged in the late 1960s. What were the topics of interest back then? Browse the tables of contents of the forerunners of today's publications and discover what has changed--and what hasn't.

Time (or lack of it) is always the bane of the existence of most volunteer managers. This is especially true when you're attempting to relate with and keep track of dozens or hundreds of volunteers - a supervisory ratio far beyond the bounds of rationality. The computer offers…