In the 25 years before his death in 2008, Ivan Scheier was a cutting-edge thinker in the field of volunteerism. After serving for 10 years as a court psychologist in the Boulder County juvenile probation department, he became coordinator of volunteers in one of the few counties in the country that employed an organized volunteer program in their juvenile court system.
In the late 1960s, Ivan and others involved in the volunteer effort formed a distinct nonprofit organization called The National Information Center on Volunteers in Courts. Volunteers in all forms of human services joined in the effort and ultimately the organization, headed by Ivan, changed its name to The National Information Center on Volunteerism.
Ivan left the world of large volunteer organizations to engage in independent consulting and training. He developed a small organization called the Center for Creative Community and offered mini-retreats for two to three people at a time at his small house in Santa Fe to help them refocus and to rejuvenate their volunteer spirit. Ultimately, he created VOLUNTAS, a larger- scale retreat/residence where people could come to heal, to rejuvenate and to dream. When VOLUNTAS closed in 1996, Ivan moved to STILLPOINT, a self-help retreat center in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
Ivan H. Scheier, one of the true American pioneers of the field of volunteerism, died on October 6, 2008. He was 82 years old.
