According to the 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating, an impressive 58% of youth aged 15 to 24 are active volunteers. And while this is heartening news for many nonprofits, there might be even more volunteer potential in...
Volunteers face many challenges in organizing a successful nonprofit group. Balancing the growth and demands of an organization with family, career, and a personal life can be incredibly difficult. According to Tina Patterson, president of the Fraser Valley FiT Network,...
If volunteers mobilized through social media can make a difference in who gets elected as president of the United States, surely any nonprofit organization looking to be effective has to look at all the ways social media can be used...
Volunteerism. It’s a wonderful activity that offers rewards for all involved. Sadly, there is a segment of the population, albeit slight, that sometimes targets nonprofits for criminal activity. A recent example is the revelation by Scouts Canada in 2011 of...
If you think you’ll attract (and keep) the attention of youth at your next event with the promise of free pizza - think again. While youth engagement is an important endeavor for many organizations, all too often activities and events...
Sheliza Kassam is a 15-year-old high school student. When she graduates next year she’s hoping to study optometry and then open her own practice. But career plans only satisfy so much. What she really loves to do is volunteer. She...
Linda Graff’s voice grows firm as she insists that to use the term, court-mandated volunteering is to speak in contradictions. “Mandatory volunteering is an oxymoron. Volunteering is, by definition, voluntary,” she stresses. A long-time consultant in the in the nonprofit...
In business, successful organizations run on high-performing teams. Whether it's an ongoing business departmental team or a special project team, it's been demonstrated that a team is stronger than the sum of the individuals that make up that team. Teamwork...
What organizations need done and what volunteers want to do are not always the same, but, rather than wringing hands and recalling the good old days when volunteers were happy to do menial tasks every Tuesday, the 2010 Bridging the...
Recently I was standing in an elevator and started up a conversation with a stranger about the usual day-to-day stuff. Nice weather we are having this winter? Can't wait for summer, and all that. Interestingly, she asked me where I...

