Engage Library

For all sorts of legitimate and prejudicial reasons, a lot of organizations debate whether or not they want to welcome volunteers younger than age 14 (or even 16 or 18).  But history provides many examples of how even the youngest of citizens have had an impact by taking up a…

The face of volunteerism is changing globally and our field is being challenged to respond in new and innovative ways. How do we create programs that welcome and affirm the variety of experiences our volunteers bring to the table? How do we meet the needs of our organization and…

In this Research to Practice, we look at the latest survey of volunteering for England and Wales, with an emphasis on how volunteers view the organisation of volunteering. This survey, called Helping Out, looks once more at some questions from a 1997 survey. Some of the results…

In a crisis situation, a designated volunteer coordinator can take charge and handle the spontaneous outpouring of volunteers that typically accompanies the situation. This Points of View examines why those skilled in volunteer management can automatically tap into a proven…

This edition of Along the Web looks at online periodicals that focus on volunteerism – including magazines, newsletters, blogs, mailing lists and more. We organize the periodicals into specific categories, and give a summary of many that we feel are particularly useful and…

There’s been a lot of discussion about the volunteer habits of Generation Y – that slice of population born between 1981 and 1995.  Why is it that so many volunteer-involving organizations still struggle to attract this group?  In this Keyboard Roundtable, an international panel…

In this third e-Volunteerism article in our Sabotage series, the authors turn their focus to those not-for-profit organizations that engage and deploy millions of volunteers globally. They list 10 universal actions that not-for-profits engage in, and argue that these actions…

The term ‘engagement’ has gained appeal in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors to explain and understand relationship management with paid and voluntary staff. Yet little to no research has been done that focuses specifically on a volunteer’s engagement and how that…

In 1904, a young New York City court clerk named Ernest Coulter was seeing more and more boys come through his courtroom. He recognized that caring adults could help many of these kids stay out of trouble, and he set out to find volunteers. From this beginning (as described on…

People are the competitive advantage of the voluntary sector. And yet we seem to concentrate very little time on how to work with this amazing resource. This Training Design presents a workshop that introduces five important tools to help organizations fully engage specifically…

Surveys in different countries show that people often choose to volunteer in the sport and recreation field.  During 2006, Sport and Recreation New Zealand (SPARC) commissioned research to look at how to motivate and recruit more volunteers, and successive SPARC studies show how…

Much of volunteering happens outside of formal agencies and what we call “volunteer programs.”  Think of the thousands of all-volunteer associations, civic and service clubs, faith communities, professional societies and other groups with none or only a few paid staff – but each…

Homeless Connect is an initiative of the Brisbane City Council (Australia) to put over 300 homeless persons in contact with various service providers from housing, medical and legal organizations. This comprehensive one-day effort, staged in City Hall, also links service…

As e-Volunteerism enters its eighth year, it is clear that one of the original aims of this online journal project hasn’t been met: Namely, to get people in our field to interact more online.  Most of our online readers don’t make use of the interactive publishing features that…

They packed nearly 500 boxed meals, including sandwiches and homemade cookies. And when teenagers with autism spectrum disorders got together last summer to prepare meals for needy families, they proved that volunteering is for everyone. This e-Volunteerism feature article tells…

Gwen Fujie calls it “martial arts ideas for the mind and mouth.”  In this article, Fujie explains why “Tongue Fu!” leads to cooperative communication and more peaceful relationships, both essential elements to success in volunteering. Based on author Sam Horn’s popular book by…

This edition of Along the Web continues to explore some of the newer and more interesting topics on volunteerism available via the Web.  We cover a very wide range of research projects and manuals from a variety of countries, reflecting the high level of interest now focused on…

In this Points of View, the authors won’t argue for a return to the old and casual systems for volunteer involvement.  After all, this is a different world with different problems – with criminal record checks serving as a perfect example of something that volunteer managers…

In this edition of Along the Web, we return to a topic first discussed two years ago and a trend that has grown significantly since that time: family volunteering. This update provides three categories of new and expanded materials on family volunteering, one of our favorite…

In 1971, behavioral scientists and innovative trainers Eva Schindler-Rainman and Ronald Lippett published The Volunteer Community: Creative Use of Human Resources. Though the book is now out of print, many of its concepts continue to resonate.  In this Voices from the Past, e-…