The Other Half of the Volunteer World

Much of volunteering happens outside of formal agencies and what we call “volunteer programs.”  Think of the thousands of all-volunteer associations, civic and service clubs, faith communities, professional societies and other groups with none or only a few paid staff – but each has its own leaders, most often volunteers themselves. These leaders are, in all ways, practicing volunteer management, but they do so in isolation from our field.  Working with volunteers who are self-led and working with those in agency-based programs has more similarities than differences, yet there is little evidence that volunteer program managers ever talk to the officers of all-volunteer groups or vice versa.  In this Points of View, we discuss how this is a great waste of potential.