Our feature articles are sourced from practitioners around the globe and seek to encourage new thinking, highlight innovative practice and stimulate debate in the world of effective volunteer engagement.
Engage Library
Feature Articles
In the spring of 2001, Canadian Blood Services (CBS) contracted the services of an external consulting firm to conduct a review of its volunteer program. The research had two key purposes. The first was to explore how CBS might improve both the involvement, and the management,…
October 2002
Six months before it opened in July 2002, the Imperial War Museum North embarked upon an ambitious community volunteering programme, working with over 100 local residents – many from disadvantaged backgrounds. Volunteers worked towards vocational qualifications in the Museum,…
October 2002
Volunteer manager Laura Hamilton knew there had to be a better way to manage and schedule volunteers at George House Trust, the largest HIV Social Care Charity in the North West of England. So when her organization began to review rota management software packages to help manage…
October 2010
It’s common wisdom in the business world that “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” In this feature article, author Tony Goodrow proposes a method of measurement that gives a whole new yard stick to help demonstrate the successes of volunteer deployment in…
October 2010
A new type of volunteering is starting to attract media attention: micro-volunteering. It has gained momentum as a creative way to use mobile phones, but in reality it is much more than that. Mike Bright, the founder of Help from Home, a UK Web site focused entirely on micro-…
October 2010
Soroptimist International of the Americas is an international volunteer organization for business and professional women who work to improve the lives of women and girls, in local communities and throughout the world. Bucking the trend of other large service clubs, Soroptimist…
October 2005
It seems increasingly complex to offer what the different generations of volunteers want, particularly Baby Boomers and Millennials: high impact volunteer opportunities, a range of choices of positions, ways to apply their workplace skills and more. The good news is there is…
July 2010
One of the hardest things a volunteer manager may ever face is how to deal with an aging volunteer whose performance has begun to fall short of the organization’s expectations. In this special two-part series, e-Volunteerism tackles this important but often over-looked issue…
July 2010
For 30 years, Kate Hanson pursued two passions: growing vegetables and herbs in her organic garden and studying the complexities of working with others. Until recently, she viewed these passions as two completely different and separate areas of her life. But in this creative,…
October 2009
The rise of social media is contributing to the return to prominence of what is called ‘the gift economy.’ As social networks and online communities grow, values such as sharing, openness and collaboration are increasingly governing our relationships and the connections between…
October 2009
In the scenic Olympic Peninsula town of Port Angeles, Washington, businesses were struggling to survive the national economic meltdown. The six-week Hood Canal Bridge closure from May 1 to June 15, 2009, temporarily slowing the economy-driving flow of tourists from the Greater…
October 2009
Despite all the theory and research about Generation Y — those individuals typically born between 1977 and 1997 — there still appears to be a considerable amount of confusion as to how volunteer managers can effectively engage this generation. Could this confusion stem from not…
April 2010
If you watched the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, you no doubt recall the “blue jackets” – the 25,000 passionate, talented and dedicated members of the Olympic volunteer team who worked at every event and venue leading up to, during and following the Games. In this e-…
April 2010
One of the hardest things a volunteer manager may ever face is how to deal with an aging volunteer whose performance has begun to fall short of the organization’s expectations. In this special two-part series, e-Volunteerism tackles this important but often over-looked issue…
April 2010
Two years ago I came from Poland to Taiwan to undertake a master’s degree program in International Human Resource Development. For over a year now, I have been volunteering in a Taiwanese non-profit animal welfare organization, Animals Taiwan. This experience led to my current…
July 2010
When screen writer and public relations consultant Jennifer Dornbush volunteered to be a guinea pig for a friend working towards her Myers-Briggs® certification, she had no idea how much taking a personality assessment would change the way she viewed volunteerism. As a long-time…
January 2010
Volunteer manager D.J. Cronin has a passion for volunteerism and the sector of volunteer management. He believes that volunteerism is an agent for real and tangible change around the globe and a key to harnessing volunteer effort. And he believes that in today’s busy and…
January 2010
There’s a huge train leaving the station, and it’s loaded with resources that many say have the potential to fire a capacity building revolution in the nonprofit/government organization service “industry.” Let’s call it “The Pro Bono Express.” Pro bono is the latest buzzword…
January 2010
How does the depressed global economy translate into something positive for volunteering? In this e-Volunteerism feature, Marzia Baldassari, a member of the Volunteering Ireland Team and Coordinator of the Dublin City North Volunteer Centre, answers this question. With Ireland…
July 2009
Paula J. Beugen, an active leader in the field of volunteerism and volunteer resources management for more than three decades, has observed legislation passed in her home state of Minnesota from the 1980s to the present. In this e-Volunteerism feature, Beugen asks why the needs…
July 2009