Ethics

Materials dealing with the "gray areas" of volunteer management -- philosophical and moral challenges that may arise.

Related Topics: Philosophy
America's Voluntary Spirit, Brian O'Connell
Bribing volunteers: Should we be incentivising people for their time?, Rob Jackson (UK)
CEO as Board Chair: The Nonprofit Ethicist Just Doesn’t Like It, NPO Quarterly

Precise ethical reasoning as to why an executive director should not be a member of a nonprofit board of directors

The Choice of the Citizen: Pay Taxes, Do Without, or Volunteer, Susan J. Ellis
Common Sense and Volunteer Involvement, Susan J. Ellis
Corporate Citizenship: A Tax in Disguise?, Richard Teather
Challenging the philosophy behind the practice.
Creating a Statement of Philosophy on Volunteer Engagement, Betty B. Stallings with Susan J. Ellis, Energize Inc.
The Emergence of Female Activism in US History, Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies, pp. 37-38, University of Illinois Press
Good Intentions Going Nowhere -- Again, Susan J. Ellis
The History of Volunteer Involvement in Seven Stages, Susan J. Ellis, Appeared as an "On Volunteers" column in The NonProfit Times
The Holiday Season: Going Beyond "Feel-Good" Volunteering, Susan J. Ellis
How Serving the Volunteer Field Has Changed after 35 Years -- Or Not?, Susan J. Ellis
If the Whole World is Changing, Can Volunteerism Stay the Same?, Susan J. Ellis
The Implications of History, Susan J. Ellis
In Frontier Days: From good neighbours to the earliest voluntary organizations
brief essay on Canadian volunteering history
Is the Rising Cost of Gas a Crisis or an Opportunity for Volunteering?, Susan J. Ellis
Leaders of Volunteers: Stop Being So Bloody Nice!, Rob Jackson (UK)
Lessening Social Exclusion through Volunteering, Susan J. Ellis
Limiting Volunteers through Insurance Requirements, Susan J. Ellis
Making an Impact When You Spend Money, Susan J. Ellis
The Money Factor in Volunteer Management, Susan J. Ellis
Money is No Object, Susan J. Ellis
The Moral Obligation of Volunteer Recruitment Promises, Susan J. Ellis
Moving on from 2001, Susan J. Ellis
On Being a Dream-Catcher, Susan J. Ellis
Philanthropy, Civic Engagement, and the Lessons of Volunteering, Susan J. Ellis
Professional Ethics in Volunteer Administration
oiginally developed by the former Association for Volunteer Administration and kept current by the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration http://cvacert.org/
A Proposal for Five Additional Goals after the Summit, Susan J. Ellis
Purity and Reality: For-Profit Consulting in Volunteerism, Susan J. Ellis
Raising Money through Volunteer Labor, Susan J. Ellis
Redirecting Corporate Volunteering, Susan J. Ellis
Replacing Volunteers with Paid Staff, Susan J. Ellis
Revisiting the Seven Deadly Sins of Directing Volunteers, Susan J. Ellis
S#%& Words We Need To Stop Saying: Words and Phrases to Erase from the Lexicon of Volunteer Management, Rob Jackson and Erin Spink
Should We Cap the Number of Hours a Volunteer May Serve Each Week?, Susan J. Ellis
Strategic Volunteer Management: Expanding Your Organization's Brain, Susan J. Ellis
Tackling Causes Not Symptoms: New/Old Roles for Volunteers, Susan J. Ellis
Together We Stand: Volunteers and Volunteer Resource Managers Connected, Susan J. Ellis
Volunteering in For-Profit Settings: Exploitation or Value Added?, Susan J. Ellis
Volunteering Is Inherently Political, Susan J. Ellis
Volunteering: The Human Face of Democracy, Jennifer Wilkinson and Michael Bittma
Volunteerism Past and Present, Susan J. Ellis and Katherine H. Campbell, Ch.12, pp. 353-5, Energize Inc.
A Volunteerism Perspective on the Days after the 11th of September, Susan J. Ellis
Volunteers as the "Third Branch" of an Organization, Susan J. Ellis
Volunteers Should Not Be Second-Class Taxpayers, Susan J. Ellis
War and Volunteers: History Repeats Itself, Susan J. Ellis
What Volunteer Resources Managers Can Teach Human Resources Managers, Susan J. Ellis
Why Young People Should Be Decision Makers, Jenny Sazama and Karen S. Young, pp. 4-6, Youth on Board
The World According to Volunteer Experience, Susan J. Ellis
"You Get What You Pay For", Susan J. Ellis

The following articles on this topic were published in the Engage journal. Previews and some articles are complementary; full articles are available to paid members.

"Supplementing or Supplanting?" The Mystery of "Volunteer" versus "Paid Employee" Right to Work
An Introduction to Ethics for the Volunteer Engagement Profession
An Old Chestnut in Volunteer Management Rears Its Head: Corporate Social Responsibility and Paid Volunteers
Don't Tell: Confidentiality and the Volunteer Situation
FaCE-ing and Managing Boundary Dilemmas in Volunteer Management
Family Feud: Relatives, Co-Workers and Friends as Volunteers
Helping Volunteers through Stressful Situations
Integrity - The Guidepost to Volunteer Relationships
Is All Volunteering Created Equal?
Knowing When to Stop: A Personal Account of a Manager's Efforts to Help Volunteers
Not Everything that is Voluntary is Volunteering
Part 2: An Introduction to Ethics for the Volunteer Engagement Professional
Paying to Play: Charging Fees to Volunteers
Religious Roots of Service
The Wall between Faith-Based and Secular Volunteerism: Is it Time to Chip Away at the Barrier?
Volunterrorism?
Walking a Fine Line: Are We Over-formalising Volunteering?
When Should We NOT Involve Volunteers?
When Volunteers Break the Rules
Department for Communities, Government of Western Australia (revised). The guidelines focus on direct involvement of volunteers or volunteer groups in contributing to the work of public sector agencies. , 2010, pp. 28

For Disaster Response Volunteers, First Responders and Disaster Planners, by the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD). Also see VOAD's "Disaster Spiritual Care," a statement of principles about spiritual and emotional support of disaster workers. 

, 2013, pp. 64
Charity Village: Ethics

From CharityVillage (Canada), this archive of questions and answers to ethical questions focuses on sticky issues confronted by nonprofit boards.

Codes of Ethics

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has compiled this list of online resources for creating codes of ethics.

Digital Collections of IUPUI University Library

Archival material from the IUPUI University Library's Philanthropy Resources Online collection. Search keywords such as "volunteering," philanthropy," etc. Many journals from the 1960s-1990s have been digitized online here, so anyone looking for older material and historical archives can find treasures.

The Ethical Volunteer

A video travel guide for volunteering abroad that ensures each placement is of benefit both to volunteers and their host communities.

Helping the Poor: Friendly visiting, dole charities and dole queues

155-page PDF by Robert Whelan for Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London, 2001, examining the roots of organized charity in England from the "volunteer person of leisure" to paid social workers.

Nonprofit Issues

Nonprofit Issues® is a national Web newsletter of "Nonprofit Law You Need To Know." Written for nonprofit executives and their advisors, lawyer Donald Kramer provides clear, concise and comprehensive coverage of real issues that affect nonprofits every day. While there is a fee for subscribing to the full publication or participating in webinars, sign up for the free weekly e-mailed "Question and Answer" where Don Kramer responds to readers' questions on topics of general interest, often volunteer-related.

Schools of Citizenship: Charity and Civic Virtue

70-page PDF by Frank Prochaska for Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, London, 2002, thoughtfully examining the history of voluntary collective action in Britain versus the rise of the welfare state.

The Serious Leisure Perspective

Canadian academic William A. Stebbins has devoted his career to studying the connection of leisure to work and volunteering,as well as professional to amateur. The site offers a wealth of materials, including a Digital Library of many articles.