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Volunteer Management Hot Topics from Susan J. Ellis

The hot topics are written by Susan J. Ellis, a volunteerism expert and President of Energize.   Through her travels and interactions throughout the world, she keeps current on the latest issues in volunteer management field. Susan's Bio

All our Hot Topics are organized chronologically below.  They have also been cross-referenced by subject in our Resource Library.  It's never too late to join in the discussion by responding at the bottom of each Hot Topic's page!

2013

• Strategic Volunteer Management: Expanding Your Organization’s Brain - May - Audio
• Revisiting the Seven Deadly Sins of Directing Volunteers - Apr - Audio
• Why Social Media Is Not the Cure-All for Building Volunteer Engagement - Mar - Audio
• The Treasure Trove of Knowledge Philanthropists - Feb - Audio
• Should We Cap the Number of Hours a Volunteer May Serve Each Week? - Jan - Audio

2012

• End-of-Year Reports Can Illuminate Volunteer Achievements - Dec - Audio
• The Perfect Volunteer Storm - Nov - Audio
• Practicing What We Preach: Volunteers Helping Us, Too -Oct - Audio
• “Why?” Is More Powerful than #@#%! - Sept - Audio
• Let’s Be Honest about Nonprofit Boards of Directors (or, Lessons to Be Learned from Penn State) - August - Audio
• Is Volunteering the Emperor’s New Clothes? - July - Audio
• Why Do We Love Volunteer Satisfaction Surveys? - June - Audio
• Three Things Volunteer Managers Can Learn from the Social Media Revolution - May - Audio
• Common Sense and Volunteer Involvement - April - Audio
• How Serving the Volunteer Field Has Changed after 35 Years – Or Not? - March - Audio
• Volunteering Is Inherently Political - February - Audio
• What Would the Perfect Volunteer Involving Organization Look Like? - January - Audio
  
  

2011

• My Personal “State of the World's Volunteering” Report - December - Audio
• Part-time Volunteer Management Means Equally Limited Volunteer Involvement - November - Audio
• What Leaders of Volunteers Can DO to Gain Executive Attention - October - Audio
• Addressing Volunteerism Issues in the Blogosphere - September - Audio
• I’ll Never Understand Why Executives Still Don’t Understand - August - Audio
• Needed: A Multi-level Approach to Credentialing Volunteer Management - July - Audio
• Is the Corporation for National and Community Service on
  the Right Track for Volunteerism? - June - Audio
• Short Attention Spans versus Long-term Causes - May - Audio
• Celebrate Collective Accomplishments, Not Volunteered Time - April - Audio
• Exercise Your Volunteering Funny Bone - March - Audio
• Real Professions Have Strong Associations - February - Audio
• The Choice of the Citizen: Pay Taxes, Do Without, or Volunteer - January - Audio

2010

• The Word "Volunteer" Can Reveal, Conceal, or Confuse - December - Audio
• When Volunteers Resist Change - November - Audio
• Good Intentions Going Nowhere – Again - October - Audio
• Online Information Overload – and How to Cope - September - Audio
• Limiting Volunteers through Insurance Requirements - August - Audio
• The Correlation between Time Donors and Money Donors - July - Audio
• Reimagining Service: Is Corporate HR Management What We See? - June - Audio
• The Self-Directed Volunteer - May - Audio
• "You Get What You Pay For" - April - Audio
• AmeriCorps and Senior Corps Targeting Volunteer Management - March - Audio
• Both Receiving and Giving - February - Audio
• Differentiating between Volunteering and Working for Pay - January - Audio

2009

• When the Ax Falls: Budget Cutting and Volunteers - December - Audio
• Media Blitz vs. Media Noise: What Are We Trying to Accomplish? - November - Audio
• Taking the Client's Perspective in Designing Volunteer Roles - October - Audio
• Making Ongoing Volunteering Valued and Visible - September - Audio
• The Separation of Service-learning from Volunteering...and Does It Matter? - August - Audio
• The Drive towards “Highly-skilled” and “Pro Bono” Volunteering - July - Audio
• Days, Hours and Minutes of Service – Enough Is Enough - June - Audio
• The Role of Volunteer Resources Managers in the Serve America Act - May - Audio
• Confidentiality and Other Objections to Volunteers - April - Audio
• The Difference between Needing and Wanting Volunteers - March - Audio
• "A New Era of Responsibility": An Open Letter to President Obama - February - Audio
• What's Ahead for 2009? - January - Audio

2008

• From Organizing Charity to Building Community - December - Audio
• How Will the Economic Crisis Affect Volunteering? - November - Audio
• The Confusing Talk about "Service" - October - Audio
• Replacing Volunteers with Paid Staff - September - Audio
• The Yin and Yang of China’s Olympic Volunteers - August - Audio
• Volunteers Should Not Be Second-Class Taxpayers - July - Audio
• Is the Rising Cost of Gas a Crisis or an Opportunity for Volunteering? - June - Audio
• It’s Volunteers and Money - May - Audio
• Volunteering Is Bigger than the Nonprofit Sector - April - Audio
• California Governor "Pumps Up" Volunteering- March - Audio
• The Power of Difference - February - Audio
• So, What Do You Do? - January - Audio

2007

• Helper Triage: Volunteer Management in Emergencies - December - Audio
• Boards of Directors: Governing at a Distance? - November - Audio
• The Moral Obligation of Volunteer Recruitment Promises - October - Audio
• Volunteering We See but Don't Recognize - September - Audio
• The Big Merger: Many Unanswered Questions - August - Audio
• The More We’re Different, the More We’re the Same  - July - Audio
• Technology Acceleration:  Grab Hold and Hang On - June - Audio
• Make New Friends But Keep the Old...  - May - Audio
• I'll help with that, but don’t ask me to lead it! - April
• Marking a Special Birthday - March
• Voluntourism – Pros, Cons, and Possibilities - February
• Should Volunteer  Program  Managers Be Volunteers, Too? - January

2006

• Together We Stand:  Volunteers and Volunteer Resource Managers Connected - December
• Encouraging Entrepreneurial Volunteering - November
• The Middle Management Barrier - October
• What’s in a Name…or a Title? - September
• Start Early:  Teaching Students about Volunteering, Not Simply Doing It - August
• "I Don't Have Time" - July
• Wouldn’t It Be Nice to Really Know…. June
• Online Spying Can Improve Your Volunteer Management Skills - May
• Why a New Association Should Serve the USA - April
• A Call to Action on Behalf of Our Profession - March
• The Fair Labor Standards Act and Other Obstacles to Progress - February
• The Implications of History - January

2005

• Charity Burnout?  How to Cope with the Impact of Mother Nature in 2005 - December
• Strength in Numbers: Engaging Volunteers as Partners in Program Development - November
• Volunteers Just Want to Have Fun - October
• The Silver Lining of Disaster - September
• Still Tilting at Windmills - August
• Save a Life, Win a Car! When Do Incentives to Volunteer Cross the Line? - July
• Mobile Volunteers – ‘Tis the Season - June
• Why Be Boring When You Can Celebrate in So Many Ways? - May
• We Can Model True Collaboration - April
• Recruitment Maxims - March
• Why Can’t We Make Progress on Public Perceptions about Volunteering? - February
• Keeping an Eye on Things in the Year Ahead - January

2004

• Chicken or Egg: Why Are Our Professional Associations Weak? - December
• Interns: The "Acceptable" Volunteers? - November
• Watching, Helping and Learning from China - October
• Workplace Volunteerism: Have We Thought this Through? - September
• Applied Futurism: Putting Trends to Work Today - August
• Should We Ask Volunteers to Give Money on Top of Time? - July

• Does It Matter if Volunteers Work in a Nonprofit or a Government Setting? - June
• Shaping Public Opinion: Volunteering, Government, and News Reports - May
• Making Volunteer Management Happen: A Proposal for AmeriCorps - April
• A Great New Report to Praise, Criticize, and Use - March
• Government, Politicians, and the Use of the Word “Volunteer” - February
• Economic Development, Internet Technology, and Volunteers -January

2003

• The Need for Institutional Memory - December
• Educating Other Professions about Volunteers: Starting at the Source - November
• Universal Standards vs. Your Own Situation - October
• Beyond Common Sense: Volunteer Management as a Specialty - September
• One Step Further: Volunteer Services and Agency-wide Education - August
• Turning a Gift into a Powerful Tool: The Internet’s Impact on the Volunteer Field - July
• Raising Money through Volunteer Labor - June
• What We See…or Don’t: Volunteers in Television, Films, and Novels - May
• War and Volunteers: History Repeats Itself - April
• Marketing Savvy – Our Field’s Blind Spot - March
• Making an Impact When You Spend Money - February
• The Hot Topic Is the Hot Topic - January

2002

• United Way is Not the Way for Volunteer Centers - December
• A Utopian View of Volunteerism Professional Organizations - November
• The Great Divide: Leaders Who Are Paid and Leaders Who Are Volunteers - October
• A Medal for Volunteer Service - How to Measure Success? - September
• The Missing Link: Where are Volunteers at the National Level? - August
• What's Hot, What's Not - July
• Reacting to the Critics - June
• Spring Cleaning: Take a Fresh Look at Your Volunteer Program - May
• Don't Call Me a 'Senior'! - April
• The World According to Volunteer Experience - March
• Mixed Messages from Government: Lessons from Minnesota - February
• Moving on from 2001 - January

2001

• It's Time to Start Counting Volunteers Seriously - December
• Tackling Causes Not Symptoms: New/Old Roles for Volunteers - November
• A Volunteerism Perspective on the Days after the 11th of September - October
• Advocacy for Volunteer Involvement: The Role of Funders - September
• Evaluating by Comparisons: Watch out for the Traps! - August
• Faith-Based Initiatives: What Might This Mean? - July
• When a Volunteer Transforms into an Employee - June
• Money is No Object - May
• National Volunteer Week: Does Anyone Care? - April
• Purity and Reality: For-Profit Consulting in Volunteerism - March
• "Youth Involvement" in Our Field - February
• Who is Celebrating IYV? Connecting the “Streams of Service” - January

2000

• On Being a Dream-Catcher - December
• Unskilled vs. Differently Skilled: Maximize Volunteer Differences - November
• Proposal for IYV2001: Be Careful What We Wish For! The Cost-Benefit Analysis of Volunteering - Sep
• If Not Your Home Page, Then Where? - August
• The Volunteer Generation Gap - July
• Enough Formal Banquets! Let's Transform Recognition Events - June
• Mixed Messages: What Do We Really Think about Young Volunteers? - May
• Some Truths Revealed about Nametags - April
• Warning! We're about to Waste an Opportunity! - March
• Volunteering in For-Profit Settings: Exploitation or Value Added? - February
• Wishes and Resolves for the New Year - January

1999

• Once in a Millennium Opportunity - December
• Statistics, Bikinis and Volunteers: The New Independent Sector Study on Giving and Volunteering - Nov
• Philanthropy, Civic Engagement, and the Lessons of Volunteering - October
• Trend Watch: Are You Ready? - September
• The Wall of Executive Indifference - August
• Mystifying Data: Can America's Promise Get Away with It? - July
• Volunteer Managers and the Time Management Trap - June
• Staff Resistance and Highly-Skilled Volunteers - May
• Lessening Social Exclusion through Volunteering - April
• The Money Factor in Volunteer Management - March
• The Just-a-Volunteer Syndrome - February
• If the Whole World is Changing, Can Volunteerism Stay the Same? - January

1998

• What's the Mystery about Motivation? - December
• The Giving of Thanks - November
• The Limits of the "V" Word - October
• Reinventing Conferences - September
• Let's Commit to International Exchange - July/August
• Turbulence at the State Level - June
• Reaching Out to International Visitors - May
• The Presidents' Summit One Year Later - April
• Some Nagging Questions... - March
• Give Volunteers a Voice - February
• Let's All Resolve... - January

1997

• The Holiday Season: Going Beyond "Feel-Good" Volunteering - December
• Global Connections - International Volunteerism - November
• Redirecting Corporate Volunteering - October
• What's Gender Got to Do with It? - September
• Volunteers as the "Third Branch" of an Organization - August
• Is volunteer management really a profession? - July
• Why is it labor unions vs. volunteers? - June
• A proposal for five additional goals after the summit - May
• Is the challenge recruiting citizens to volunteer or making sure agencies are ready for volunteers? - April

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