The late volunteer management expert Susan Ellis used to tell a story about visiting a friend who engaged hospital volunteers. (We’ll call her Judy). Susan met Judy in her office before a lunch date. Judy opened the closet door to retrieve her jacket before heading out and grumbled as baby booties rained down. “What’s the…
Tag: <span>volunteer engagement</span>
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Nonprofit leaders love to extol the virtues of volunteers. They declare that volunteers are the heart of the organization. They assert that the organization cannot do what it does without volunteer involvement. Yet the dirty little secret of the nonprofit sector is that many of these same leaders think that volunteers are more trouble…
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“One of the most common ways people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” Alice Walker For years, the big funder in town had been bringing by wealthy donors to volunteer in the large community center. The donors often wanted to (and did) serve in the preschool. The problem was that…
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A little more than a year ago, many nonprofit agencies told their volunteers to stay home. This unthinkable action became reality almost overnight. Now, as we slowly emerge from a world turned upside down, nonprofit leaders are planning for what happens next and reimagining their volunteer strategies. One colleague in the throes of these decisions…
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In a 2018 article, nonprofit leader Jan Masaoka called the nonprofit sector to task. She named the growing professionalization of the sector and its reliance on consultants as a step away from nonprofit roots in activism and the causes that drive it. This shift has led to increasing “sophistication” in nonprofit operations, with paid professionals more…
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Preparations for a course on Volunteer Engagement have me thinking about how we apply diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles to volunteerism in meaningful ways. What does DEI look like in volunteer engagement – from design to implementation? How do we invest in volunteerism so that it provides a bridge from the community into the…