Hot Topics

Responses to:
Marking a Special Birthday

Submitted on 19 March 2007 by Frank Pomata, L.I. Volunteer Hall of Fame, Co-Founder
Long Island, NY USA
Susan - Here's a toast to the past and a wish for another 30 years of Energize, Inc fostering volunteerism, under your visionary and insightful leadership. Thanks for being a guiding light to those of us working directly with volunteers to bring programs to life! Keep it up.

Submitted on 18 March 2007 by Hillary Roberts, PLNJ Inc., President, Keyport/NJ USA
Happy Birthday Energize, Inc.! Congratulations to Susan and her team for being one hard-working example of how to approach and educate the profession. Energize strenghtens the authenic, diverse and often misunderstood field of volunteer management.

Before stumbling upon Energize and early in my 2nd career, I believed an all-volunteer organization had to work twice as hard as its staffed counterparts. Within the pages of Energize, I quickly learned EVERY professional working in a non profit struggles with mission challenges and strives for stamina, sustainability and like-minded support.

Energize's revised mission statement demonstrates the importance of re- thinking our agency roles; working through the "improvement plan."

Afterall, true leadership is best demonstrated by a community ENERGIZED.

Submitted on 16 March 2007 by Jayne Cravens, United Nations Development Programme, Consultant, Kabul Afghanistan

If I could sing Happy Birthday in Dari, I would. Instead...

I've been in the field of volunteer management since 1994 or so, when I was asked to create web sites for more than a dozen initiatives and thought, hmmmm... I'm sure there are some college students who would love to volunteer to do this, since I don't really know how. Two of them asked if they could work from home, I said sure, and thus I was introduced to online volunteering... but two years later, when I met Susan and found out that volunteer management was an actual *field*, with books and workshops and associations, and that I was now in this field, I also started to realize the vital role volunteers had played in every nonprofit organization with which I had been affiliated. Susan, her team, and the resources at Energize literally, fundamentally, changed my life. Even now, when I'm focused on my other area of expertise (media and internal communications), the things I've learned from Susan and Energize affect my work.

The two most important thing I've learned since entering the field: (1) that volunteers need to be in leadership positions and critical roles in a nonprofit for that organization to truly be connected to its community and to be sustainable. (2) that most organizations are terrified of allowing volunteers to assume leadership positions and critical roles and, therefore, rarely unleash the full power of volunteers.

Submitted on 14 March 2007 by Miriam Leslie, The Mustard Seed
Volunteer Development Coordinator, Edmonton Canada
I LOVE your site--thank you for all your great work!  I have been "formally" in this field for the past six years with a few interruptions. I say formally because somehow when I was a pastor, I didn't realize that I was very much involved in volunteer management with our particular organization.

My career transition finally seems to be settling down and I have discovered my niche, I think, I hope! I love the people--the amazing heroes I'm privileged to meet.I love the diversity of people and also the diversity of work. I love being stretched to new capacities professionally and personally.

I wish I had a personal mission statement. Thanks for the prod on this!

I love the feeling of helping others to help others, if that makes sense!

Submitted on 7 March 2007 anonymously from Alhambra, California
I have been enjoying your newsletter for 7 years... bought several books...and used several of your 'hot topics' for discussion at our volunteer coordinator meetings... keep it up... please.

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