Rosenthal - Volunteer engagement 2.0: ideas and insights for transforming volunteer programs in a changing world

Cover image and design: VolunteerMatch

Copyright 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Volunteer engagement 2.0 : ideas and insights changing the world / edited by Robert J. Rosenthal.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-118-93188-2 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-118-93190-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-93189-9 (ebk)

1. VoluntarismUnited States. 2. Voluntarism. I. Rosenthal, Robert J., 1972

HN90.V64V643 2015

302.14dc23

2015001923

This book is for everyone who dreams of a better worldand especially for those who help achieve it.

The volunteer engagement field is filled with textbooks showing how to model our programs on those of others. In contrast, the purpose of this publication is to help us think differently about what's possiblefor ourselves, for our work, and for the many challenges that will rise up ahead on our journey. It's meant to be a collection of ideas and insights to help you find the way on your own path in social change.

From 2009 to early 2014 I was lucky to lead the communications team at VolunteerMatch, where, among other things, we produced thought-leadership and education programs for our network of millions of nonprofit professionals, volunteers and corporate social responsibility teams. The inspiration for Volunteer Engagement 2.0: Ideas and Insights Changing the World was our series of free webinars, which presented to nonprofit audiences a diverse range of thinkers who might have otherwise not been heard by those who work with volunteers. Some of the contributors to this book, in fact, first introduced their ideas to volunteer engagement audiences during those webinars, and today thousands of volunteer coordinators are putting to work what they learned there.

Nonprofit staff, volunteers, and corporate social responsibility teams have a lot in common. Some work at it full-time, others just on the weekends, and others have big budgets. But we are united in our desire to live in a just, peaceful, healthy society. At VolunteerMatch I noticed that many of the biggest ideas in volunteer engagement were coming from disciplines that were tangential to traditional volunteer managementdigital communications, product development, social media measurement, branding, and management consulting all have much to offer us. Innovation, it turns out, often moves from the outside in. The

I produced this book while living in a very old neighborhood in Kathmandu, Nepal. Working here was a strong reminder about the importance of leaning into the change that surrounds us. Here transformation is urgent and everywhere. But even though motorcycles and ringtones now dominate the ancient lanes, traditional ways of life grounded in family, prayer, and community are still the bedrock. Eventually those traditions will make room for more rights for Nepal's women, workers, and previously untouchable castes. Change can't be stoppedand why should it be? Indeed, Kathmandu Valley was itself once a vast lakethe basin its draining left behind became a Shangri-La, a place where nature provided for all.

Recognizing the interconnectedness of things, I'd like to thank each of the 30 experts who gave generously of their time for this book despite their very busy schedules. I want to acknowledge Alison Hankey from John Wiley & Sons who has been an enthusiast for this book and appreciated its embrace of the unorthodox. Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch, got behind a 300-page print publishing project even though he knows more than most just how short our attention spans have become. Dr. Sarah Jane Rehnborg and Susan J. Ellis, true leaders of volunteer engagement both, pointed me in smart directions I would otherwise have missed. Darian Rodriguez Heyman and Ritu Sharmu, two social-change makers I've previously been fortunate to collaborate with, inspired me through their own devotion to nonprofit capacity building.

I am grateful to my friends in Kathmandu, especially Annie Seymour and Tim Stewart, who have been my cheerleaders and supporters while I completed the project. And, finally, I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt I owe my mother, Marilyn, who taught me the importance of giving back.

Robert J. Rosenthal (@socialgoodR)

Holly Ross

Executive Director, Drupal Association

When my friends at VolunteerMatch asked me to write the foreword to this book, I was frankly a little bit uncertain.

For six years I served as executive director at the Nonprofit Technology Network (or NTEN), which is best known for our annual technology conference and our online education programs. Since 2013, I've been in a similar role at Drupal Association, the nonprofit that supports the development of Drupal, open source software that powers more than a million websites around the world.

Neither organization seems, at least to me, to exemplify the kinds of nonprofits that would likely be reading Volunteer Engagement 2.0.

When we think of the word volunteer, we tend to imagine individuals contributing their time to physical tasks, which are in short supply at nonprofits that are focused on technology. There are no playgrounds to clean or mailers to prepare when your mission is helping people use technology.