Monday, April 26, 2010

Picks of the Week: April 25 – May 2, 2010

Website of the Week – MarketingPower.com

The American Marketing Association, one of the largest professional associations for marketers, has 38,000 members worldwide in every area of marketing. For over six decades the AMA has been a leading source for information, knowledge sharing and development in the marketing profession. The AMA's website, MarketingPower.com, supplies marketing professionals and AMA members with the information, products and services required to succeed in their jobs and careers. The site offers a comprehensive collection of articles, reports, webcasts and a newsletter focused on marketing, public relations, advertising, trends and industry news. While some of the resources are available to members of the AMA only, many resources can be accessed through a no cost registration on the website. Go to: www.marketingpower.com.


Publication of the Week -- Volunteers: A Social Profile by Marc A. Musick and John Wilson

From the publisher: Who tends to volunteer and why? What causes attract certain types of volunteers? What motivates people to volunteer? How can volunteers be persuaded to continue their service? Making use of a broad range of survey information to offer a detailed portrait of the volunteer in America, Volunteers provides an important resource for everyone who works with volunteers or is interested in their role in contemporary society. Mark A. Musick and John Wilson address issues of volunteer motivation by focusing on individuals' subjective states, their available resources, and the influence of gender and race. In a section on social context, they reveal how volunteer work is influenced by family relationships and obligations through the impact of schools, churches, and communities. They consider cross-national differences in volunteering and historical trends, and close with consideration of the research on the organization of volunteer work and the consequences of volunteering for the volunteer. Click to preview this link on Amazon.com.


Trend of the Week – Value of Volunteer Time Rises

Independent Sector announced that the estimated dollar value of volunteer time for 2009 is $20.85 per hour which increased from $18.77 per hour in 2006. IS calculates the hourly value of volunteer time based on the average hourly wage for all non-management, nonagricultural workers as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The estimate helps acknowledge the millions of individuals who dedicate their time, talents, and energy to making a difference. Charitable organizations can use this estimate to quantify the enormous value volunteers provide. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, about 61.8 million Americans, or 26.4 percent of the adult population, gave 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $162 billion in 2008. Go to: http://www.independentsector.org/volunteer_time.


Resource of the Week -- Resources for Volunteer Managers

Located on the website of ServiceLeader.org, this resource area provides information on all aspects of volunteer management, including getting your organization ready to involve volunteers, volunteer screening, matching, record-keeping and evaluation, legal issues/risk management, volunteer/staff relations, online activism by volunteers, and volunteer management software. ServiceLeader.org is a project of the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas at Austin. For the resource page, go to: www.serviceleader.org.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Combining Text from Two Fields in Access

In Microsoft Access you can combine the text in two or more fields into a single text string by using “concatenation”. The results can be displayed in a field in a query, or in a control on a form or report.

For example, If you have a table that contains the fields First and Last for the name, use the following expression to create a text string that displays the values of the First and Last fields separated by a space.

=[First] & " " & [Last]

Type this expression in a text box control on a form or report to display the first and last name together. (Be sure to put a space between the double quotes in the expression.)

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