Along the Web is a "retired" section. It was based on former editor Steve McCurley's general theory of life: "Why re-invent the wheel when you can steal the whole car?" Leaders in volunteer involvement already have too much to do to waste time, so in this section we tried to show you what's already been learned by others. Along the Web presents materials and sites found on the Web that focus on various aspects of volunteering
Engage Library
We commonly do “Along the Web” by subject categories, but in this issue I thought I’d just list a variety of interesting reports that have shown up recently that either don’t fit neatly into categories or are within subject areas that we have already covered. We’ll continue this…
October 2005
One of the more interesting, and more useful, new ways of engaging people in volunteering developed in the past decade has been the concept of “family volunteering,” recruiting entire family units to volunteer together.
The implementation of family volunteering has made the…
July 2005
Recent years have seen a plethora of new research on volunteers and volunteerism. In this issue of “Along the Web,” we’ll focus on “volunteer management infrastructure,” and examine how well prepared we are to actually work with all those volunteers who are lurking out there.…
April 2005
This issue of Along the Web looks at one of the most difficult areas of volunteering – operating a program in a rural community. Volunteer involvement is much more difficult when you are in a community where the population is sparse and widely distributed, and where many of the…
January 2005
One of the results of the recent surge of research on volunteering is that it is now possible to find information about aspects of volunteering that were largely invisible twenty years ago. A prime example of this is volunteering among Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender…
October 2004
This issue of Along the Web highlights various volunteer recruitment campaigns utilizing print, radio, and television public service announcements (PSAs). We thought you’d like to see what your competition is doing and plan accordingly. The examples here are mainly from the US…
July 2004
In this issue of “Along the Web” we’ll look at Internet resources for volunteers in arts, culture, museums, and heritage programs. This is all part of an effort to lend a bit of class to our otherwise pedestrian existence. Items are grouped into sections:
articles and technical…
April 2004
One of the fastest growing areas of volunteer involvement is that of the participation of youth. This area, however, has its differences from traditional management of adults. In this issue of Along the Web we'll look at studies on what motivates youth to volunteer, how to…
January 2004
This issue of Along the Web deals with a phenomenon that has gained much more attention in the past two years - volunteers who respond during disasters. As publicity about this surge of what has been called "spontaneous volunteering" grows, we can expect the phenomenon to…
October 2003
One of the hottest and most complex topics in volunteer management is the screening of volunteers. The amazing thing is that making comprehensive background checks of volunteers is a relatively new practice, almost unknown twenty years ago. It is now, however, a requirement in…
July 2003
The emergence of employee volunteer programs has been one of the most significant developments in volunteerism in the past 20 years. In this issue of “Along the Web,” we look at 42 resources from six countries with solid information to help both businesses and charities make use…
April 2003
One of the truly neat things about volunteering is that is allows people to make a contribution to the world in which they live. With formal volunteering this is only true, of course, to the extent that organizations allow people to volunteer, thus recognizing that ability to…
January 2003
Volunteers have always been the backbone of sports, leisure and recreation programs, so we decided to do a quick round-up of Web resources in this area. What follows is a mix of things:
research studies and articles
forms and policies
workbooks and manuals
And just for fun we…
July 2002
Time (or lack of it) is always the bane of the existence of most volunteer managers. This is especially true when you're attempting to relate with and keep track of dozens or hundreds of volunteers - a supervisory ratio far beyond the bounds of rationality.
The computer offers…
January 2002
The growth of volunteering around the world has also led to the growth of organizations whose purpose is to support volunteering. What follows is a list of such organizations. It is vaguely organized by geographic territory - sometimes by country or sub-territory, sometimes by…
October 2001
Volunteering involves political, cultural and philosophical aspects, all of which are worthy of discussion for the ways in which volunteering interacts with other aspects of society. Much of this discussion is about how government and other institutions can work cooperatively to…
July 2001
One of the more amazing things about the Internet is the sheer amount of information that is available. While much of it is foolish, a good bit of it is the result of hard work and research. Those seriously interested in volunteerism can find an immense amount of survey research…
April 2002
Our previous issues have dealt with serious topics related to volunteerism, demonstrating the capacity of the Web to produce amazing amounts of useful material to assist managers of volunteer programs.
Of course, that's only one side of the Web. The other, more entertaining,…
April 2001
One of the most frequent questions on listservs for volunteer program managers is: "What is the value of volunteer time?"
Since we're really tired of reading both the question and the responses, we decided to provide the definitive list of places to learn far, far more than you…
January 2001