32,420 research outputs found

    Review into the employment and skills opportunities of the 2012 Games-time period

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    Volunteering Reinvented: Human Capital Solutions for the Nonprofit Sector

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    To grow and adapt in today's continuously changing society, a nonprofit organization must recognize the value and contribution of both its paid staff and volunteers. Simply recruiting large numbers of volunteers, however, does not necessarily translate into success for the nonprofit sector or the community at large. Successful results are achieved when an organization is able to support, mobilize, and manage its volunteer resources for the greatest possible impact on a problem or need.In a competitive environment where resources are often scarce, nonprofit executives and boards of directors have become more strategic about how they leverage the various resources at their disposal:money, space, inkind donations, equipment, technology, and employees. Unfortunately, however, one of the most powerful and plentiful resources of all -- volunteers -- continues to receive short shrift from nonprofit leadership. This paper is intended to educate nonprofit executives about volunteering as a key human resource strategy, illustrate that volunteering is not just nice but necessary, and demonstrate the value volunteers bring to an organization that strategically plans for how to use them both to support infrastructure and to deliver programs and services

    Citizens at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement

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    Offers specific recommendations for giving citizens the tools they need to identify problems and develop solutions in their communities -- and warns against top-down solutions that require people to "plug into" existing programs or campaigns

    Volunteering and Civic Service in Three African Regions: Contributions to Regional Integration, Youth Development and Peace

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    This paper broadly looks at the role of youth volunteering in cultivating peace and development in Sub-Saharan Africa

    State of the World's Volunteerism Report: Universal Values for Global Well-being

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    The focus of this report is on the universal values that motivate people the world over to volunteer for the common good and on the impact of volunteer action on societies and individuals. The authors advocate the power of volunteering to promote cooperation, encourage participation and contribute to the well-being of individuals and of society as a whole

    Afterschool in Action: How Innovative Afterschool Programs Address Critical Issues Facing Middle School Youth

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    With support from MetLife Foundation, the Afterschool Alliance presents this compendium, containing a series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth, schools and communities, and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. The four issue briefs featured in this publication address: the importance of aligning afterschool with the school day, bullying awareness and prevention, service-learning opportunities and literacy education. Each brief combines relevant statistics, comments from experts and community leaders, and examples of outstanding afterschool programs. The compendium also includes profiles of successful programs and a discussion of the MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Award.The 2011 MetLife Foundation Afterschool Innovator Award winners are:Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools - New Orleans, LAHigher Achievement - Washington, D.C.Urban Arts/Project Phoenix - Oakland, CA21st Century PASOS - Gettysburg, PAAmerica SCORES - Chicago, I

    Convergence: How Five Trends Will Reshape the Social Sector

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    This report highlights five key trends and how their coming together will shape the social sector of the future. Based on extensive review of existing research and in-depth interviews with thought leaders and nonprofit leaders and activists, it explores the trends (Demographic Shifts; Technological Advances; Networks Enabling Work to be Organized in New Ways; Rising Interest in Civic Engagement and Volunteerism; and Blurring of Sector Boundaries) and looks at the ways nonprofits can successfully navigate the changes. The monograph is by La Piana Consulting, a national firm dedicated to strengthening nonprofits and foundations

    Re-thinking the Legacy 2012: The Olympics as commodity and gift

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    This paper opens discussion about the nature of Olympic ‘legacy’ and articulates a contradiction in the way ‘legacy’ is conceived - between ’gift’ and ’commodity’ (Mauss 1954).The The paper argues that establishing working definitions and parameters for ‘legacy’ is a difficult task. Defining ‘legacy’ is problematic especially if conceived as an entirely predictable or measurable set of objectives. Indeed, the definition of ‘legacy’ is partly constitutive of the legacy itself, a component of achievements that the city might make. Such a ‘legacy definition’ will become a functional term in the complex planning and evolving conceptions underpinning urban change for some time—if successfully negotiated and if governable. As such, ‘legacy’, and the activities and values entailed to it, can come to provide a catalytic ‘vocabulary of motives’ and a legitimating discourse enabling politicians, communities and their individual representatives to justify investments, evolving strategies and activities connected to and connecting developmental gains in a more or less healthy fashion. It is because of this that legacy and its various meanings come to matter

    The challenges facing public libraries in the Big Society: The role of volunteers, and the issues that surround their use in England

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    The use of volunteers in English public libraries is nothing new, however their use is becoming ever greater and one may argue that we are increasingly seeing a mixed economy of public library provision, in the wider arena of the Big Society. This paper presents the findings of a Delphi Study of 15 library managers undertaken as part of a Professional Doctorate exploring the challenges facing public libraries in England today, particularly focusing on volunteer use. An overview of relevant supporting literature is provided to help contextualize the research, particularly focusing on concepts such as the political background surrounding policy development, community engagement, the Big Society, and volunteering. Explanation of how the Delphi Study was conducted is given, together with a discussion of the key findings. Results show that opinions of library managers cover a broad spectrum. Although volunteer use is generally viewed by the respondents as a good thing, with potential to further enhance a service and aid community engagement, there are also a number of concerns. These concerns particularly relate to the idea of the volunteer as a replacement to paid staff rather than an enhancement to the service. Other key concerns relate to the quality of service provision, the rationale behind volunteer use, and the capacity of communities to deliver. Volunteer use in public libraries on this scale is a new phenomenon, and the longevity of such a development is largely unknown. This raises the question as to whether this is simply a large scale ideological experiment, or a move to even greater community engagement

    Towards a typology of critical nonprofit studies: A literature review

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    This review examines scholarship in key nonprofit journals over four decades. Its purpose is to: 1) analyze the extent, nature, and contribution of critical nonprofit scholarship and its trajectory over time, and 2) call on scholars, research institutions, and journals in the field to engage the kinds of insights these increasingly marginalized approaches bring, providing space for them to join, challenge and shape the research conversation. Findings show only 4% of articles published within the period examined adopt critical approaches, with great variability in the ways articles exemplify core tenets of critical scholarship, and a general dampening of critical work over time. This conservatism may result from the rejection of less understood philosophies and methodologies of critical inquiry in favor of more mainstream (positivistic) models of social science. Our primary contribution is to advance a typology explicating the pluralism inherent in critical approaches to nonprofit studies, their strengths and limitations
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