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"Our Organizational Roots"
A Start From Us and a Request of You
by Susan J. Ellis

In 1978, when Katie Noyes Campbell and I wrote the first edition of By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, we included a chapter on the emergence of the profession of volunteer management. By 1990, when the second edition of By the People was published, the amount of "organizing" in the volunteer field had grown to the point of requiring a chart to keep track of the comings, goings, mergers, and re-namings of multiple groups. As many of you know, Katie and I are working on a third edition of By the People, with hopes for publication by the end of 2001 (our contribution to IYV). It came as no surprise that more developments have occurred in the past decade. Since this section of e-Volunteerism is titled "Voices from the Past," it seems relevant to present the chart to readers as a work-in-progress. We would love to tap your memories and archives to ensure that we produce the best time line possible, including the most pertinent organizations. For those of you who entered the field much more recently, we hope this look back at the roots of some of today's professional groups and resource providers will give you a better perspective of how we arrived at today's mix of organizations.

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