With all the hustle and bustle of our modern lives, it can be easy to let our good intentions to volunteer fall by the wayside. Volunteering doesn’t have to feel like an extra task on your never-ending to-do list. From small tasks to larger projects, finding ways to get involved is easier than you might think.

Giving Tuesday is kicking off the holiday giving season again this year, and while organizations encourage their supporters to give financially, many are also interested in the gift of time! If you haven’t included volunteer recruitment into your Giving Tuesday strategy in the past, here are three easy ways to get ready before November 29th.

Guest post by Ed Grocholski, Junior Achievement USA

November is National Entrepreneurship Month. It is a celebration of those visionaries who strike out on their own to start and build businesses that meet customer needs while benefiting the community as a whole.

Guest Post by Luisa Conlon, Director of Senior Prom

As we celebrate National LGBTQ+ History Month this October, we can work together to raise up the experiences and voices of our LGBTQ+ elders, and learn about the sacrifices so many of them made to get us here.

Published 10/6/21 and updated on 9/30/22

Each of us has the power to create more compassionate and inclusive communities in different aspects of our lives whether at home, school, work, or in our neighborhood. October provides a variety of opportunities to celebrate diversity, learn more about each other, and strengthen our communities by giving back. Explore 12 ways you can do just that!

This week is National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week and we want to show some #LocalLove to Literacy Minnesota, the only statewide, volunteer literacy organization in Minnesota. 

Sophie Phan, Volunteer Outreach Coordinator and volunteer for Literacy Minnesota, believes in English literacy as a powerful means to broaden educational and economic opportunities for immigrants and refugees in the United States. Sophie immigrated from Vietnam to Minnesota when she was five years old, grew up as a voracious reader, and believes in the power of stories to motivate and inspire.

The September issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy highlighted some current challenges in volunteer engagement with two in-depth articles. In the article “Why and How Charities Should Revive a Declining but Vital Resource ... Volunteers” reporter Ben Gose interviewed me, along with many others working with and leading volunteers, to bring some perspective and insight into what’s changed and what’s stayed the same since the pandemic. He asked insightful questions and did a great job framing up the story. I want to share a little more on our discussion, where we are as a field and a profession, and some things to consider moving forward.

In a world where we are seemingly endlessly bombarded with painful news, it’s easy to imagine that the pandemics of our time would have all of us curled up in a ball on the couch. It’s not an unreasonable reaction to a steady onslaught of tough news. It’s also not true.

For this International Dog Day (August 26th) we want to spotlight Lily’s Legacy Senior Dog Sanctuary, a nonprofit dedicated to the mighty task of rescuing, caring for, and rehoming large breed senior dogs. Of the dogs who come to Lily’s, 80% are from shelters and, more often than not, have suffered neglect. The organization does thorough evaluations and treatments to get them adoption ready.