Engage Library
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
Most people know about credit unions but consider them simply as alternate banking systems. In fact, credit unions are volunteer-run cooperative credit agencies that combine idealism and practicality. In this Voices from the Past, we learn about this rarely discussed corner of…
January 2010
After 10 years of e-Volunteerism, convening editors Andy Fryar and Rob Jackson look back at the Keyboard Roundtable concept. They review why this electronic roundtable discussion of experts, tapping away on their computer keyboards, came into being, and revisit some of the…
January 2010
Is the worst of the recession over? Many nonprofits are still feeling a dual pinch - more clients to serve and less money to do it with. But despite the downturn, many organisations seem to report steady volunteer numbers. Anecdotal evidence from the UK even suggests that…
January 2010
Most of our readers manage volunteer programs in social, community, arts or environmental services – which leads us to easily overlook the fact that some of the largest and most complex volunteer efforts lie entirely outside these areas. In this Along the Web, we look at one of…
January 2010
PDF Version with Handouts
Single days of service through organized, large-scale events are growing in popularity around the globe. Although such episodic volunteering is a major trend in volunteering, too often we evaluate these events on the specific outcomes of that one day of…
January 2010
For the last decade, we’ve watched professional associations of volunteer program managers – on local, state/provincial, national and even international levels - launch, thrive, wither, revive or stagnate in dozens of countries. Our conclusion? There is still no consistency of…
January 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
In 1990, the Bethlehem Area School District in Bethlehem, PA., decided that every public high school student would perform 60 hours of unpaid community service during high school. The District gave students an open-ended list of approved organizations where they could perform…
July 2009
Over the last few years, we have seen employer-supported volunteering grow into a vital element of the volunteerism field around the world. More recently, we’ve begun to see a shift from the so-called “team challenge” approach to volunteering (where teams of employees perform a…
July 2009
Readers of e-Volunteerism and users of the Web site often want to find evidence to support the impact of volunteering. In short, does volunteering work? Finding evidence to support volunteering can be tricky, for all sorts of reasons. This edition of Research to Practice looks…
July 2009
One of the fastest growing and most significant new ways of volunteering in the past 20 years has been volunteering through one’s workplace. Major corporations have created extensive programs to encourage and enable their employees to volunteer and this form of business social…
July 2009
The Internet increasingly provides a means for nonprofits and government organizations to engage with people in their circles of influence. More and more organizations are blogging and posting YouTube videos and, more importantly, a great many organizations are asking their…
July 2009
Over the years we’ve seen an impressive array of attempts to “re-conceptualize” volunteering, at least to re-name it. Last fall, the United States saw a flurry of special events, legislative proposals and media attention focused on the subject of “service.” It was brought to a…
July 2009
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
The civic disengagement of youth has been a notable concern for policy makers and academics in Canada and around the world. In fact, today’s young people have been often described as the “civic deficit” generation, resulting in calls for new programs in civic education and…
July 2009
It’s official. YouTube isn’t just for silliness anymore. The richness and variety of the videos that people now post online are quite amazing, and so it should come as no surprise that volunteering is among the subjects represented. In this Voices from the Past, we’ll link…
April 2009