Volunteer Leadership Research Articles

Achieving Excellence in Member Service: ASHA’s Strategic Pathway

Achieving Excellence in Member Service: ASHA’s Strategic Pathway

Folkpatterns: A Place-Based Youth Cultural Heritage Education Program

In 1978, the Michigan State University Museum and Michigan 4-H Youth Development teamed together to develop Folk-patterns, a program to engage youth across the state of Michigan in cultural heritage educational activities. With support from National Endowment for the Humanities grants, 4-H education and museum-based humanities specialists, along with youth advisors and community-based volunteer leaders, planned and implemented an array of programs, publications, and events that have engaged thousands of youth and their adult leaders in investigations of personal, family, and community histories and folk traditions. The program has been replicated in total and in part by other states, and many of the elements have been adopted for use in other youth educational settings including public schools. Nearly thirty years later, this partnership between 4-H and the Michigan State University Museum is still going, many of the elements have been institutionalized, and new directions are constantly being explored. This essay will examine the history of the project, describe some of its program components, and comment on how this educational program has benefited both the MSU Museum and Michigan 4-H.

Folkpatterns

In 1978, the Michigan State University Museum and Michigan 4-H Youth Development teamed together to develop Folk-patterns, a program to engage youth across the state of Michigan in cultural heritage educational activities. With support from National Endowment for the Humanities grants, 4-H education and museum-based humanities specialists, along with youth advisors and community-based volunteer leaders, planned and implemented an array of programs, publications, and events that have engaged thousands of youth and their adult leaders in investigations of personal, family, and community histories and folk traditions. The program has been replicated in total and in part by other states, and many of the elements have been adopted for use in other youth educational settings including public schools. Nearly thirty years later, this partnership between 4-H and the Michigan State University Museum is still going, many of the elements have been institutionalized, and new directions are constantly being explored. This essay will examine the history of the project, describe some of its program components, and comment on how this educational program has benefited both the MSU Museum and Michigan 4-H.

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Implementing a Leadership Course and Mentor Model for Students in the National Student Nurses' Association

To help student development as responsible and accountable leaders, a mentor model was incorporated into an established voluntary leadership course offered each semester. The student joins the National Student Nurses' Association, completes leadership projects, and contracts for the course grade. The mentor model is a leadership option that pairs senior students wanting to mentor with junior students wishing to be mentored. The authors describe the outcomes of the leadership-mentor experience.

Med & Ren 2006

The 2006 Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference was held in Cambridge from 17 to 20 July. While the city sweltered in record-breaking heat, a packed programme of 56 papers, two round-table sessions and two keynote speeches offered delegates some compelling reasons to stay indoors in the relative cool of the Faculty of Music. With so many of papers on offer, most sessions ran in parallel; it was sometimes difficult deciding which papers to miss. Med & Ren conferences are known for their friendly, constructive atmosphere, and this gathering was no exception: stimulating post-paper discussions spilled out into break times and continued over the appetizing lunch buffet. Personal and professional connections were renewed, and—best of all—senior scholars and junior academics shared platforms and ideas. The convivial atmosphere was much helped by the exemplary conference organization: under the leadership of Edward Wickham, friendly staff and helpful student volunteers ensured that everything ran smoothly.

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer leadership The key to successful big gift fundraising

Paul Malloy discusses the importance of having a volunteer leader, who will be able to donate significant amounts of money and attract other ‵big money' donors to your cause. He reveals how to identify potential leaders, how to cultivate them and how to meet their demands.

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

The American Association for Thoracic Surgery Volunteer Leadership and Senior Staff Disclosure Statement

The American Association for Thoracic Surgery Volunteer Leadership and Senior Staff Disclosure Statement

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Hvorfor spilde tiden med kvindelig idrætsledelse?

Artiklen med undertitlen 'Kønskonstruktioner og ligestillingsmæssige tiltag i den frivillige idrætsledelse' har til formål at vise de kønskonstruktioner, der eksisterer i idrætsorganisationerne, og som har indflydelse på forudsætningerne for kvinders besiddelse af lederposter i organisationerne.Linnea Ytting: Why waste time on female sport leadership? About gender construction, gender equality in the voluntary sport organizationsThe sports organisations Danmarks Idræts- Forbund (DIF) and Danske Gymnastik- og Idrætsforeninger (DGI) have few women represented in their top leader positions. Both organisations have approximately 50% female membership and represent the entire Danish organised sport field. This is a sad fact, because women and men in many areas have different interests in sports. This article analyses some of the gender constructions of 6 young men and women in voluntary leadership, within chosen sports organisations. The purpose is to find the meaning of gender and describe how it is interpreted by the women and men in leading positions. The result of this research shows that many women are not interested in leading positions higher than club level. At the same time however, the structure of organisations are limiting, as to women wanting to achieve a higher voluntary leading position. Therefore it can be established that women must want the power, but the power must also want the women. In 2002 the political mainstreaming project was offered to sports organisations, introducing the gender problem on the political agenda. The political dimensions will therefore be included in the article, because the consequences may affect the sports organisations

Core Competencies for 4-H Volunteer Leaders Differentiated by Occupation, Level of Education, and College Major: Implications for Leadership Education

The purpose of this study was to demographically describe 4-H volunteer leaders’ competencies for effective delivery of 4-H youth development programs. As a subset of the data, occupation, level of education, college major of the volunteer leaders, staff and faculty were gathered as the primary focus the article. The study was descriptive and correlational in nature. The study found that 4-H volunteer leaders are more highly educated than those from earlier studies; educational majors are more diverse; 10 of the 32 competencies were found to be significant by level of education; and level of education has no impact upon the ten fundamental competencies needed to effectively deliver 4-H programs.

Dropping Out: Why Male and Female Leaders in German Sports Federations Break Off Their Careers

This paper presents results of a research project about the experiences of male and female volunteer leaders in German sport organisations who “dropped out” of their leadership positions earlier than originally planned. In Germany the sports system is based on clubs and federations, and sports organisations are run by unpaid volunteers who also make up the decision-making committees. The aim of this project was to identify gendered patterns of careers and drop-out processes and thus to contribute to an explanation of the marginalisation of women in executive bodies of the German sport system. Constructivist approaches to gender and the sociology of organisations, with particular consideration of organisation culture, framed this study. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 7 male and 9 female former leaders who had been engaged in various positions on the national level of different sport federations. The findings revealed a great variety of leadership biographies and reasons to leave the sport associations, which had to do mostly with the culture of the organisation. However, some patterns and typical processes as well as different types of drop-out processes could be identified. Gender differences emerged especially with regard to attitudes towards dealing with power, prestige and conflicts. In contrast to the men, the women not only experienced sex-specific discriminations but also showed a much higher emotional involvement in conflicts and the drop-out-processes as a whole.

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Volunteer Leadership Directory

Outdoor leadership: Theory and practice

Martin, B., Cashel, C., Wagstaff, M., & Breunig, M. (2006). Outdoor leadership: Theory and practice. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 328 pages, ISBN: 0736057315. I have a number of books on my shelves about outdoor leadership. They range from the now dated classic 'Freedom of the Hills' (1974), which fired my young imagination in its depictions of the rigorous demands and responsibilities of venturing into the frozen mountains as a leader of other adventurous souls, to 'Bushwalking and Mountaincraft Leadership' (1994), which remains a treasure trove of practical and local advice. Some books age gracefully. There is also the weighty and theoretical 'Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming' (Priest and Gass, 1997) and the experientially based and narratively driven 'Outdoor Leadership: Technique, Common Sense and Self-Confidence' (Graham, 1997). Each of these books reflect their times, cultures and vary in their intended audiences. It is possible to chart a trend from the days when outdoor leadership was largely the concern of community clubs and volunteer leaders to the present when, more and more, it has become the domain of an emerging profession of qualified leaders who have to access certification programs and tertiary education degrees (in outdoor recreation management, adventure leadership, camp counselling, outdoor education and so on). From this small sample of the many books and guides published on the topic it is also possible to detect a persistent tension in the relationship between theory and practice. Do we learn to be outdoor leaders by doing it or through studying the theories that attempt to explain it? Can the theory and practice of outdoor leadership be brought into a closer nexus where we gain maximum benefit from reflecting (theorising) upon our practical experiences and then using those theories to anticipate the demands of future experiences? A recent addition to my library, 'Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice' (Martin, Cashel, Wagstaff, and Breunig, 2006 In reviewing this new book on the topic I posed a number of questions to myself: how do the authors deal with the relationship between the practice of outdoor leadership on the one hand and theoretical perspectives on the other; how does the book engage with its anticipated audience of students taking "introductory college [undergraduate] courses in outdoor leadership" (Martin et al., 2006, p. ix), and; finally, how might the book also serve a broader audience of practicing outdoor leaders (whether they be teachers, club leaders etc.)? Incidentally, the authors all work within the tertiary education sector in North America. 'Outdoor Leadership: Theory and Practice' (2006) introduces eight core competencies of outdoor leadership (foundational knowledge, self-awareness and professional conduct, decision making and judgement, teaching and facilitation, environmental stewardship, program management, safety and risk management, technical ability). The authors use a system of codes to map these core competencies across the text. The book is then presented in four parts: Part I - Foundations of Outdoor Leadership, Part II - Outdoor Leadership Theory, Part III - Teaching and Facilitation, and Part IV - Resource and Program Management. Each part is presented in a series of chapters. Each chapter opens by defining key concepts and reminding the reader of the core competencies that relate to the chapter content. It then begins with a vignette that takes the reader into the world of the novice or emerging outdoor leader. These narratives portray a 'practical' experience (like debriefing a ropes course session or learning from co-leading with a more experienced leader) or the need to make a professional decision (such as deciding upon a particular sea kayak route in changeable conditions or facing an ethical dilemma). The presentation of the chapter then works to 'solve' or 'inform' these practical scenarios through reference to established theory, research and wellwritten discussion. …

The Perceived Effectiveness of Continuing Care and Group Support in the Long‐Term Self‐Help Treatment of Obesity

Obesity is increasingly considered a chronic disease requiring continuing care, but professional long-term treatment for most patients is not available. This study examined treatment recipients' perception of the effectiveness of different components of a group self-help, continuing-care treatment program for obesity. Members (n = 120) and volunteer leaders (n = 66) of a self-help, continuing-care treatment program of previously demonstrated effectiveness (mean treatment duration, 40.6 months; mean weight lost, 14.1 kg) rated how helpful and effective they found the various therapeutic strategies used by this program. The strategies examined were continuing care, group support, behavior therapy, motivational enhancement strategies involving positive reinforcement, and motivational enhancement strategies involving punishment. The single most highly valued aspect of treatment was the provision of continuing care, followed by group support. Greater success at achieving one's goal weight was associated with perceptions of greater effectiveness of the program's strategies overall (r = 0.219, p < 0.005), of continuing care (r = 0.225, p < 0.005), and of positive reinforcement strategies (r = 0.223, p < 0.01). Participants who had successfully attained their goal weight perceived behavior therapy strategies as more effective than did participants who had not reached their goal weight [t(170) = 2.93, p < 0.005]. The high ratings given to continuing care and group support strategies indicate the acceptability of supportive self-help treatment for obesity administered over the long term. The findings suggest that continuing care and group support should be made available to participants in the self-help treatment of obesity.

Effective Volunteer Leadership: ASCO State Affiliates Share Their Stories

Effective Volunteer Leadership: ASCO State Affiliates Share Their Stories