Image of Volunteering

e-Volunteerism Needs Your Words 

What words come to mind when you think of “volunteers” and “volunteering”? Service? Critical Resource? Irreplaceable? Incredible Individuals? Devoted? Under appreciated? Social entrepreneurship? Invincible? Vital?

In this Voices, we ask you, our readers, to contribute a list of any and all words that come to mind when you think of volunteers and volunteering. Then we’ll take every single word you’ve submitted below and create a “word cloud” from the text that you’ve provided.

After more than a decade in the classroom, Sarah Jane Rehnborg has taught volunteer management on the graduate level to students from public affairs, business management, social work, communications, fine arts and other areas of specialization. Along the way, Rehnborg discovered some interesting resources and methods to convey some of the key concepts in volunteer management — teaching tools that are equally applicable to students and any audience that needs to be educated about our field.

In Part 1 of this article presented in our last issue, Rehnborg explored a technique for developing role-play scenarios and the use of current events in the classroom.   Now, in Part 2, Rehnborg discusses ways to explore critical thinking skills, the value of guest speakers and the complexity of internship experiences. Just as she did in Part 1, Rehnborg shares useful resources that will help inform your own knowledge of the field, while helping you develop presentations that capture critical volunteer management issues for paid colleagues and volunteers as they learn the ropes of working with the community. 

Sarah Jane Rehnborg has more than a decade in the classroom – teaching volunteer management on the graduate level to students from public affairs, business management, social work, communications, fine arts and other areas of specialization. Along the way, Rehnborg found some interesting resources and methods to convey some of the key concepts in volunteer management. Since her students are frequently new to studying volunteer issues, these teaching tools are equally applicable to any audience that needs to be educated about our field.

In Part 1 of this article presented here, Rehnborg explores a teachnique for developing role-play scenarios and the use of current events in the classroom. In Part 2, presented in the next issue of e-Volunteerism, Rehnborg features ways to explore critical thinking skills, the value of guest speakers and the complexity of internship experiences. In both, Rehnborg shares useful resources that will inform your own knowledge of the field, while helping you develop presentations that capture critical volunteer managemnt issues for paid colleagues and volunteers as they learn the ropes of working with the community.

We hear over and over again how volunteers are indispensable to many organizations. While we have previously covered articles on different methods used to estimate a value for volunteer contributions, a new study out of New Zealand looks at how volunteer value is communicated, both internally and externally. In this issue, reviewer Laurie Mook examines how a team of researchers conducted a qualitative study of local and national medium-sized health charities, and provides some thought-provoking insights into the barriers and drivers to communicating volunteer value for these organizations. An interesting aspect of the study, Mook explains, is that the researchers interviewed the executive director, fundraising manager and manager of volunteers from each organization, providing for a more holistic look at how volunteer value is communicated. Mook also provides her insights into the practical implications of the study, encouraging readers to reflect on the implications of making volunteer contributions visible while also considering the impact of keeping them invisible.

Want to elicit an “ah-ha!” moment from people who think too narrowly about what volunteering is and who does it?  The “Personal Volunteer History” worksheet provided in this Training Designs article is the core of a training exercise that will do just that. It will help:

• Demonstrate to paid staff or members of the general public that everyone has been (and probably still is) a volunteer in some way, although that label might not be applied to the activity. So it’s a great way to start an introductory workshop or course about volunteering, particularly the issue of vocabulary making much of volunteering invisible.
• Guide a screening interview – of both volunteers and employees – to gauge the candidate’s personal understanding of volunteering.
• Structure volunteer orientation sessions and even recognition events, putting the service that volunteers do for your organization into personal context.

Generally the hardest part of the exercise is getting participants to really think back on what they have done over their lives (the older the respondent, the more they need to remember!). But the worksheet’s greatest value is in the reflection and discussion it can generate, which is something e-Volunteerism readers can appreciate.

For nearly two decades,the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies research group has conducted comparative research on volunteer work and the nonprofit sector. This year, in conjunction with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and in collaboration with the United Nations Volunteers and an international Technical Experts Group, the Johns Hopkins Center has published a Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work. The Manual was developed “to help statistical agencies around the world track the amount, type and value of volunteer work in their countries” in a systematic, regular and comparative fashion.  Although national statistical agencies are its primary focus, the influential document also provides food for thought for measuring volunteer work at the organization level. This quarter’s Research to Practice presents highlights from this work.

In late 2009, Volunteering England established a Volunteer Rights Inquiry to look into a rising number of volunteers who were complaining, sometimes very publically, about their treatment by their volunteer-involving organizations. After nearly 18 months of confidential testimony, the Inquiry published its final Call to Action report in March 2011. In this article, editorial team member Rob Jackson, former Director of Development and Innovation at Volunteering England and head of the secretariat for the Volunteer Rights Inquiry, gives e-Volunteerism readers exclusive insight into the work of the Inquiry and the issues it raises for the volunteer management field around the world.  Editor-in-Chief Susan J. Ellis notes that Jackson’s story and accompanying sidebar represent a “great coup for e-Volunteerism. No one else has yet reported on the Volunteer Rights Inquiry beyond the release of the official documents.”

 

In this issue, Rob Jackson’s feature story about volunteer rights describes and analyzes the unique Volunteer Rights Inquiry led by Volunteering England from 2009 to 2011. In this special, companion Voices presentation, Jackson interviews two key participants who were deeply involved in the groundbreaking work and gives insight into the personal side of the Inquiry process. The Inquiry participants share their reflections on the controversial issue of whether or not to offer legal recourse to volunteers who feel mistreated by their organizations, as well their hopes for the future and their thoughts on what the work means for the volunteer management field as a whole.