A diverse group of individuals uniting in solidarity with their hands stacked together outdoors.

As nonprofit professionals, we can create a paradigm in which we treat all gifts and their givers equally. For many of us, used to putting treasure donors (and the largest treasure donors especially) on a pedestal, this shift gives us the opportunity to partner with and celebrate supporters by valuing their “best” gift and the relative impact they are choosing to make with us.

Something I see often is: designing for attention instead of designing for use. We focus a lot about keeping people interested in engaged through overloaded slides, and activities stacked on activities But, what training designers need to come back to is asking themselves: Who am I designing for this time? And, what kind of instructions do they need?

In this conversation, we unpack a question that comes up constantly in nonprofit spaces, yet rarely gets clear answers: What actually distinguishes volunteering, service learning, and internships? The short answer: it’s complicated. The more useful answer: it depends on intent, structure, and accountability.