Supporting, Recognizing, and Challenging Volunteers

Supporting, recognizing, and challenging volunteers are all separate tasks, but together they provide a strong volunteer program with satisfied volunteers. This article will address these three issues separately, but keep in mind how they work together. Maintaining volunteers is one of the most difficult and integral parts of any volunteer program. More

Recruiting Male Volunteers

Men tend to volunteer for social service programs in lower numbers than women. However, male volunteers can expand an agency's donor base, offer new or different ideas, and diversify the circle of people with whom clients and volunteers interact. This 1999 report by National Service Fellow Stephanie Blackman, Recruiting Male Volunteers: A Guide Based on Exploratory Research, suggests ways to reach and recruit male volunteers based on seventy-one interviews with volunteer managers and male volunteers. More

The Socioeconomic Resource Statement

Whereas the Socioeconomic impact Statement is analogous to an income statement, the Socioeconomic Resource Statement is analogous to a balance sheet, but it too combines the social and the economic. The balance sheet examines the equilibrium between an organization's assets, liabilities, and equity. The basic equation is assets minus liabilities equals equity. More

Tips for Getting Technology Funding

How many times have you struggled to get funders to support something youknow is essential to your mission, but they see as irrelevant, uninteresting, or both? This article aims to help you inspire as much passion for a mysterious and costly database as you do for the humans who will populate that database. More

He Shops, She Shops

To really dig into how a customer will react, retailers need to start with sex appeal. Because of their neurological makeups, men and women process information differently. Communication between the two sides of the brain happens more quickly for women, and they’re wired to take in a 360-degree view and weigh various factors simultaneously. Whereas men seem to be more result-minded and prefer getting in, getting what they need and getting out, once women get to the aisles, their brains continue scanning and are easily distracted by stimuli. More

Family Affair: Rewards for the Whole Family

How do you give recognition to star employees? Try rewarding their families, too. Why? Because rewarding the families of high achievers goes a long way toward job satisfaction, motivation and loyalty. Whether the reward is small or large doesn't matter. More

Tips for Making 2009 Workplace Goals Stick

January is a prime time for professional (and organizational) goal setting and resolutions. It's a healthy practice for all workplace professionals. Setting goals and resolutions can help provide focus, order, direction and inspiration to your work life, especially important in rough waters like this economy. A great place to start is by reviewing the past. More

Shoppers to Go on an Electronics Diet in 2009

The consumer electronics industry may get a colder shoulder this year than in 2008 from as many as half of American consumers, according to research introduced by Forrester Research and timed for this week’s pair of large consumer tech conventions in Las Vegas and San Francisco. The online poll of more than 5,000 U.S. adults found about 51 percent saying they would curb their technology spending this year because of economic pressures. More