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
Linda Watson, Volunteer Specialist at the Hospice of Central New York, describes her involvement in bringing the concept of hospice end-of-life care to Russia and introducing Russian colleagues to the importance of including volunteers in the caregiving. Since 1985, Watson has…
January 2004
Once in a while, a volunteer is injured, or injures someone else, in the course of his or her work. Sometimes, it is just an allegation that the volunteer injured someone else; whether or not the allegation is true, a legal defense still is required. In many cases, the cost of…
October 2003
Earlier this year, Elisha Evans and Joe Saxton of 'NFP Synergy' in the United Kingdom, released a report titled 'Five key trends and their impact on the voluntary sector'. The report looked at five demographic trends and explored their likely impact on the voluntary sector.
The…
October 2003
This article advocates for people with mental illness being more accepted as volunteers. My experience in mental health issues is complex, encompassing several points of view. First and foremost, I am mentally ill myself, fighting against bipolar disorder type 1 since 1986. I…
October 2003
In response to the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Hong Kong, the Agency for Volunteer Service (AVS), along with Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), launched the “SARS Prevention Volunteer Campaign” to mobilize volunteer resources all over the community to…
July 2003
While the recent war in Iraq posed a variety of ethical, moral and humanitarian questions for many of us, it was the headline of the local daily paper that caught my attention and challenged me to confront a potential area of volunteerism with which I am not particularly…
July 2003
Laura Otten, the Executive Director of La Salle University’s Nonprofit Center, was the opening speaker at the first “National Nonprofit Human Resources Conference: Putting People at the Center,” sponsored by Action Without Borders, in Philadelphia, PA, USA, on June 12-14, 2003.…
July 2003
Somewhere, in an organization quite like yours, a staff member is in the countdown for the annual fundraiser... With the countdown underway, the lead staff member is juggling a thousand balls: confirming logistics for the entertainment; finalizing attendance figures with the…
July 2003
Interviewing is a lot like archery. The athletes who participate in that sport have their mind on one thing: hitting the bull’s-eye. Their strategy is to develop the skills to hit the bull’s-eye portion of the target every time. Your target when you interview is the kind of…
April 2003
Ten Thousand Villages, the largest fair trade organization in North America, works to provide vital, fair income to artisans in Africa, Asia and Latin America by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories. The nonprofit organization has its American headquarters in…
April 2003
As many managers of volunteer programs with minuscule to nonexistent budgets would attest, money alone does not make an outstanding program, but it sure can help. When money does become available, the best way to spend it might be to first spend none at all. Get your bearings,…
April 2003
In the late 1990s, the Volunteer Center of Battle Creek (Michigan) worked closely with the Points of Light Foundation (POLF) and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) to adopt and implement the POLF Family Matters program. The goal of the POLF Family Matters program was to “make…
January 2003
On a recent visit back to the United States, I heard very different opinions about volunteerism from two good friends. The first said that she will never volunteer again...she tells why. The second friend said she couldn't get enough of volunteering...and she tells why.
These…
January 2003
Fund raising in Italy is deeply rooted in antiquity. We could go as far as to maintain that it was born 2000 years ago at the age of the Roman empire. Seneca and Cicero (De Officiis) might be regarded as the first two theorists of fund raising, not to mention the golden age of…
January 2003
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…
January 2002
At the recent Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City many non-Canadians would have heard our national anthem, "O Canada," for the first time. Of course, it is a young anthem, adopted only 35 years ago. Canada is a young country but we have a long history of volunteerism. During 2001…
July 2002
"Time dollar" advocates claim that their currencies are not money, when in fact they are - special-purpose monies that function differently from the general-purpose monies we are accustomed to using. Does this mean that time dollars are a detriment to volunteerism? Not…
July 2002
I began work as a Coordinator of Volunteers in 1964. A year later I started writing poetry and haven't been able to stop since. I only hope this is not another occupational hazard in a profession already well supplied. Still, it's true that poetry can say some things hard to…
July 2002
During the period of 1975 to 1998, the defining change in volunteer involvement was the shift in styles of volunteering from the Long Term Volunteers, who had dominated volunteering in the 20th century, to the Short Term Volunteers, who struggled to balance the demands of work…
July 2002
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…
January 2002