Happy National Volunteer Week.

If you’re engaged with a charity or non-profit, you’ll likely receive kudos from that organization during #NVW2019, which runs April 7-13, 2019. Maybe it’s a newsletter, or a card, or a call—all nice touchpoints, but they are secondary to the intrinsic motivation that spurs most and keeps people going. The ways in which people commit to their communities is diversifying. It might be through board work, long-term projects or, increasingly, through episodic tasks such as hosting an event, taking photographs for an organization’s social media accounts, or dispensing advice.

While volunteering is a traditional engagement tool—often on a ladder toward other organizational goals such as giving a donation—the act of volunteering in of itself is being seen for its own merits—and for its necessity. In 2015, 57 percent of all Canadian