Description

Ivan Scheier wrote Exploring Volunteer Space in 1980 and it is still amazingly relevant today.  It is a philosophic-yet-practical exploration of the universe of volunteering, attempting to describe, define and explain how and where volunteering occurs.  Ivan ties together the many dimensions of unpaid service, from the most grassroots neighborliness to formal-affiliation volunteer programs, showing these to be a continuum along which we can move back and forth depending on need.  In doing this he defines ten “dimensions of volunteer involvement,” with each dimension having a range of options – and notes how we have not yet tapped the many variations possible.

Ivan also examines the role of the leader of volunteers and considers ways these community mobilizers might expand their reach, facilitate greater service, and gain in importance professionally.  

Too often overlooked (and long out-of-print), this book demonstrates what a visionary Ivan was.  Energize has the last remaining copies and is selling them at a low price while they last since these are somewhat shelf-worn. 

Table of Contents

 1. Introduction: Mood and Motivation
 2. Defining Volunteer Space: The Center and the Perimeters
 3. The Dimensions of Volunteer Space: A Map of Volunteer Country
 4. All the Names of Volunteering
 5. In Harmony with Society
 6. Attracting People and Getting Full Value for Our Money
 7. Strength for Leadership of Volunteers
 8. Time Spans and Tenderness
 9. How Close in Touch
10. The Company of Help
11. From Observation to Action
12. The Secret Volunteer
13. On Visible Love
14. Me First to Martyrdom
15. A Few Words on the Root of All Evil
16. They Also Serve…
17. The Help-Intending Cardshark in a Volunteer Park – and Other Useful Games
18. Involvement Day: Script for a Celebration

Readers' Reviews

Exploring Volunteer Space was Ivan Scheier’s greatest work – an exploration both of his own mind and of the universe of volunteering.  In it he outlines much of what volunteering can be and a great deal of what would happen in volunteering in the future. While Exploring Volunteer Space is a highly conceptual work, it also has great relevance to practitioners who are thinking about the development of their volunteer programs.

Steve McCurley, in e-Volunteerism, January 2009

When you've completed the book, remember to submit a review!

Brief Excerpt

The main point is that a pious insistence on purity of other-giving motivation as a condition of volunteering cramps our recruiting at both ends: people willing to give in this way, and people willing to accept in this way. It discourages participation by ordinary folk who cannot possibly meet these rigorous criteria, and don’t feel guilty about not doing so. If we in any way signal our perception of such people as the great unwashed, they will wash their hands of us. Surely, we can’t believe that volunteers will sign up if there is nothing in it for them.

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