Engage

10/14/2025

"Remember, volunteering is ultimately about relationships — between volunteers and causes, volunteers and staff, and volunteers and the communities they serve.
🌍 Do you conduct volunteer exit interviews?

A graceful exit honours the relationship that’s been, while leaving space for new forms of connection to emerge.

10/13/2025

What are the objectives when forming volunteer roles? Are they transforming or transactional?
🌎 Definitely transactional: Volunteers provide completion of a goal and we provide a sense of meaning and purpose.
🌍 Definitely transformational: Both volunteers and our organization succeed.
🌏 More transactional: We both gain something, but we can't forget that volunteers are free to leave.
🌎 More transformational: Although volunteers may not stay long, we are looking for a shared growth and lasting relationship.
🌍 A combination of both: We both give and receive, and strive for mutual growth and hopefully make a lasting impression.
Something else?

10/11/2025

"People who work for the government or non-profits for much lower wages than they could make in the private sector because they want to serve, are acting altruistically."
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https://buff.ly/KLMUjwP

10/11/2025

Our FREE article, "Lessons from a Volunteer-Run Library of Things" is filled with wisdom and experience.
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https://buff.ly/ZCgz2EE

10/10/2025

What subjects would you like to see in the ENGAGE journal?
🌍 We welcome ideas, proposals and drafts.
Our editors will work with you thru the process.
https://buff.ly/L7l39HE

10/10/2025

"Recruiting volunteers for unpopular causes can be brutal."
🌏 How do you "sell" your cause or mission?

Let’s face it, if your cause doesn’t involve children or animals, you will have a harder time recruiting volunteers.

10/10/2025

Volunteer retention is defined as the ability to ‘keep volunteers involved in an organization.’
Is this accurate?
🌎 Our new FEATURE article, "Volunteer Retention Defined for Today’s Volunteers," explores misconceptions and how to modernize our approach to retention.

10/09/2025

Not ready to subscribe?
🌏 Our newsletter keeps you informed of new articles, including the FREE ones each issue.
https://buff.ly/zJ2HtTw

10/09/2025

"You become the architect of your own value. You unbundle your job into tasks and automate the ones that don't matter, to pour energy into the ones that do - the judgment, the relationships, the creativity.
You build your own ladder, with rungs made of trust and taste, and you hold it for others to climb alongside you.
🌍 How will AI change volunteer engagement? What do we need to do now, to position ourselves in the future?

The systematic removal of how people advance up the career ladder.

10/08/2025

"When people feel like they’re helping to build something from the ground up, rather than just filling predetermined roles, their investment in the success increases."
🌍 This blog post from Rob Jackson is a must read.

This improvisational mindset offers valuable lessons for Volunteer Engagement Professionals.

10/08/2025

“What you need to know on Day One is not the same as Day 15 or Month Six"
🌎 In our new AHEAD OF THE CURVE, now FREE for everyone, three Leaders of volunteers discuss the volunteer management challenges in disaster relief that apply to all volunteer management situations.

Volunteering can mean many things to different audiences – acts of kindness, scheduled shifts, mentoring, fundraising. But there is one category of public service that often stands alone: disaster relief. Some disasters give us warning, others happen so quickly that our ability to process them fol...

10/07/2025

Volunteer retention. How can we update how we talk about retention to capture an accurate snapshot of our volunteers and their service to our mission?
🌎 Our new FEATURE dives into the myths surrounding volunteer retention

Struggling with conversations around volunteer retention at your organization? Is retention a talking point you have not been asked to dive into? Is it one you avoid? Or perhaps retention is something you have not previously considered for your volunteer roles? To many Leaders of Volunteers, volunte...