Ahead the Curve, introduced in the October 2020 issue, explores how technology is shaping contemporary volunteer engagement and how it will shape the field in the future.
For as long as there's been a formal practice of Volunteer Management, there's also been a notion that professional Volunteer Managers should do a better job of training a more effective volunteer. That notion is about to change. Could it be possible that one of AI’s hidden…
Engaging volunteers to transition into lifelong donors is a challenge for any nonprofit organization seeking sustainable support. In Ahead of the Curve, author Sam Fankuchen explores effective strategies and mechanisms to convert volunteer commitment into long-term financial…
In the beginning, there were sign-in sheets. Then there were time-tracking tools, followed by web registration forms. While these processes began to engage a volunteer, they did little to help understand who that volunteer is. At the fundamental level, knowing a person means…
Those who doubt the value volunteers provide are the Yin to the Yang we share in our dedication to the practice of Volunteer Management. They say, “How do you support the idea that community service has an economic value? Your evidence is fluff!” We say, “Human capital is a…
Few topics have been surrounded in contemporary tech lore as much as “The Blockchain.” At the same time, it’s something of a sleeper phenomenon. An author by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published a paper in 2008 that many cite as the blueprint for blockchain technology and…
“Who explores, implements, accesses, maintains and improves technology in our organization, and under what circumstances?” If you haven’t already asked this question, it's time to do so. Maybe you have an Information Technology (IT) practice, or maybe no one’s job description…
Engage author Sam Fankuchen previously reviewed the use of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool called ChatGBT in the field of Volunteer Engagement. Now, in this new Ahead of the Curve, Fankuchen taps his considerable AI expertise to provide additional information about the…
Q4 of 2022 was a seminal moment for artificial intelligence. Indeed, this was the quarter when the conversation about AI shifted from hypothetical questions and defined capabilities to a mass-market, free and commercial product offering. This is when we met ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is…
Every volunteer is a special snowflake – and that's a good thing! Individual perspectives help us find more human solutions to outstanding needs, and knowing the unique powers of each volunteer would ideally enable us to be the best versions of our programs.
In the past, we…
In recent years, 70 percent of employees said they need to work at a company that offers giving and volunteering opportunities, yet only 10 percent of employees who worked at such companies participated in these programs. And in 2020, as we all know, a pandemic struck and the…
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…
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?…
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…
We are living through the democratization of impact data and impact analysis. Once the reserve of elite, institutional philanthropy, new tools and data are enabling a much wider swath of nonprofits to credibly demonstrate their mission impact to stakeholders, including donors …
Editor's Note: Due to unfortunate circumstances, this issue's Ahead of the Curve on "End-to-End Impact: Crediting Volunteers with the Differences They Make" has been delayed but will appear in our July - September issue. In its place, we revisit a story on volunteer management…
Question: How much time would you save if you no longer manually sourced, screened, scheduled, tracked, analyzed, reported on and reached out to re-engage your volunteers and their contacts?Answer: Though most of our peers wouldn't admit it, you'd probably reclaim 20 percent to…
For decades, running a strong volunteer program meant clearly defining roles and responsibilities, sourcing the right volunteers and managing consistent project delivery. Today, the same considerations remain true, but the practices of delivering them in a modern setting have…
