Engage Library

Many organizations that engage volunteers also work with paid staff. This mixed workforce can be a huge benefit, but it can be difficult to schedule these two groups’ hours in a way that allows organizations to optimize efficiency and ensure adequate coverage of all roles and…

If you were training to become a train driver, would you learn how to start the train and travel along the tracks without learning anything about how to stop? Of course you wouldn’t. So, why would we start a volunteering journey and continue that journey without any…

What if Volunteer Management software providers had a crystal ball? What would they see and hope for in the next decade? And, looking back, what visions did they have for software today, and how have those expectations been realized or not? In this Ahead of the Curve, author Sam…

Ruth Leonard gets right to the point: “I never intentionally planned to become a Volunteer Involvement professional. I wonder how many of us do?” In this Engage feature, Leonard continues this issue’s feature focus on why and how people choose life-long careers in Volunteer…

In November 2024, Sue Kobar retired after 44 years of working in the volunteer sector in both paid and unpaid leadership roles around the globe. In this poignant, first-person account, Kobar highlights many of the key lessons she learned along the way, and describes the…

What if every volunteer-involving organization had, as part of its mission, a mandate to involve community members as volunteers – a mandate that is fundamentally tied to why the organization exists and not simply how it achieves its goals? In fact, should volunteer-involving…