November 6, 2025 Episode #187: Bold Leadership – Celebrating IVMDay with Nicole Smith In this inspiring episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson celebrates International Volunteer Managers Day with special guest Nicole Smith, Executive Director of Alive. Together, they dive into this year’s powerful theme — “Be Bold and Make Change.” Nicole brings [...]
October 30, 2025 Episode #186: Strategy vs Tactics - How to Include Both in Your Volunteer Planning In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson breaks down one of the biggest pitfalls in volunteer planning: confusing strategy with tactics. She explains why a plan that’s just a long list of tasks will never [...]
October 23, 2025 Episode #185: To Burnout & Back - My Secret Struggle with Long COVID In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson steps away from her usual format to share her journey through Long COVID, from the first onset of symptoms to the long [...]
October 16, 2025 Episode #184: The Experience Economy – Are Nonprofits Keeping Up? In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson unpacks how the experience economy is reshaping the way nonprofits engage and retain volunteers. Building on last week’s discussion about the evolving volunteer marketplace, Tobi explains why it’s no longer enough [...]
October 9, 2025 Episode #183: The New Reality - Volunteers Don't Need You In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson tackles a bold question: has the volunteer–nonprofit relationship changed for good? As societal expectations and volunteer trends evolve, Tobi explains why today’s landscape looks more [...]
October 2, 2025 Episode #182: The 8 Game-Changing Policies That Make Volunteers Say WOW! In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson builds on her previous conversation about harmful volunteer policies by introducing eight transformative strategies to attract and retain passionate volunteers. From creating a welcoming environment and offering flexible commitments [...]
September 30, 2025 Episode #181: The 8 Volunteer Policies That Are Killing Your Mission In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson uncovers eight common volunteer policies that could be hurting your mission. From poor first impressions and slow communication to overly complicated screening processes, inflexible commitments, [...]
September 18, 2025 Episode #180: 3 Smart Ways to Design Volunteer Service Awards In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson explores smart, research-backed frameworks for designing meaningful volunteer service awards. Instead of relying on traditional recognition tactics, she shows how to align awards [...]
September 11, 2025 Episode #179: Transformative Service Experiences with Frederick J. Riley and Jackie Wolven In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson dives into the topic of transformative service experiences with guests Frederick J. Riley, Executive Director of Weave the Social Fabric Project [...]
September 4, 2025 Episode #178: 6 Ways to Help Program Volunteers Avoid Compassion Fatigue In this episode of the Volunteer Nation Podcast, Tobi Johnson dives deep into the critical issue of compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress among program volunteers. These frontline heroes play vital roles [...]