
Welcome to the Volunteer Nation Podcast!
Weekly interviews, big hat thinking, quick wins, and smart strategy to help you
engage your community and make a bigger impact.

Welcome to the Volunteer Nation Podcast!
Weekly interviews, big hat thinking, quick wins, and smart strategy to help you
engage your community and make a bigger impact.
About the Show
Nonprofit leadership author, coach, and expert Tobi Johnson shares weekly tips to help charities build, grow, and scale exceptional volunteer teams. Discover how your nonprofit can effectively coordinate volunteers who are reliable, equipped, and ready to help you bring about BIG change for the better.
Rather than continuing to “do more with less,” achieve abundance for your organization by engaging community talent that helps you do more with more.
Society is evolving and so, too, is volunteerism. With over 25 years of experience working in nonprofits, public sector agencies, and grassroots campaigns Tobi is known for her modern “big hat” thinking and straight talk about what it takes to achieve success in today’s world.
You will learn how to coordinate volunteers, improve the volunteer experience, recruit volunteers, appreciate volunteers, and do it all more efficiently with the right volunteer management software and digital tools. It’s a mix of interviews and solo shows you’re not going to want to miss.
So, if you’re ready to ditch the stress and harness the power of people to fuel your good work, you’re in exactly the right place. Hit subscribe and let’s DO this!
Your Host
Tobi Johnson, MA, CVA is an internationally sought-after expert, consultant, advisor, and master trainer in volunteer engagement. She is known for her modern thought leadership, highly practical evidence-based strategies, and innovative, “big hat” thinking around engaging, supporting, and acknowledging the work of volunteers. She is the President of Tobi Johnson & Associates, a consulting firm whose mission is to help nonprofit organizations make connections with remarkable volunteers. In 2015, she founded VolunteerPro, an online training and networking community for leaders of volunteers. She is also co-host of the Time + Talent Podcast with Jennifer Bennett of VolunteerMatch.
Tobi has over 30 years direct experience in nonprofit management, program development, program coordination, training delivery and learning design across a wide range of charities and government agencies. She wrote Chapter 1 of Volunteer Engagement 2.0: Ideas and Insights for Transforming Volunteer Programs in a Changing World. Each year, her firm also conducts the Volunteer Management Progress Report, a global state-of-the-industry survey. In 2022, over 1,300 professionals from 28 countries participated.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Tobi is a graduate of the University of Washington and has a master’s degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She now lives in East Tennessee with her husband and feline office assistant, Bailey.

Latest Episodes
018-How to Use Slack to Strengthen Volunteer Teams
August 11, 2022 Episode #018: How to Use Slack to Strengthen Volunteer Teams In this week’s episode, Tobi shares how her team at VolunteerPro has been implementing tools like Slack for a couple of years, why they are an improvement over email [...]
017-My Top 12 Nonprofit Leadership Tips Learned the Hard Way
August 4, 2022 Episode #017: My Top 12 Nonprofit Leadership Tips Learned the Hard Way This week, Tobi is sharing her tips on success for leaders and future leaders of nonprofits. Nonprofit Leadership Tips from an Expert After 30+ years working with [...]
016-Nonprofit Boards with Joan Garry
July 28, 2022 Episode #016: Nonprofit Boards with Joan Garry In this week’s podcast, Tobi chats with Joan Garry, founder of the Nonprofit Leadership Lab, on the topic of nonprofit boards. Nonprofit Boards This unique subset of service-minded leaders is [...]
015-Recruiting Volunteers Online with Jennifer Bennett
July 21, 2022 Episode #015: Recruiting Volunteers Online with Jennifer Bennett In this week’s podcast, Tobi welcomes guest Jennifer Bennett from VolunteerMatch to discuss effective strategies for recruiting volunteers online, and what to do if your current online recruiting efforts are being [...]
014 – New Volunteer Vision with Rob Jackson
July 14, 2022 Episode #014: New Volunteer Vision with Rob Jackson This week, Tobi welcomes guest Rob Jackson to discuss a new post-pandemic volunteer vision, the recently released Vision for Volunteering report, and the future of volunteerism in the U.K. New [...]
013 – Is Volunteer Word of Mouth All It’s Cracked Up to Be
July 7, 2022 Episode #013: Is Volunteer Word of Mouth All It's Cracked Up to Be In this week’s podcast, Tobi takes a look at volunteer word-of-mouth recruiting, and how this powerful tool is working all the time on behalf of your [...]