When I started at ISACA in 2014, I was astounded at the number of willing, able and enthusiastic volunteers in the ISACA family. Coming from the for-profit world, the opportunity to work with volunteers was new to me. And, it certainly opened my eyes to the joys of working in the nonprofit sector.
Volunteers for ISACA at the global level perform many different and varied roles, including:
- Helping at ISACA conferences
- Participating in a certification item development working group
- Being a mentor
- Writing or reviewing a Journal article
- Reviewing other content such as white papers, audit programs, books, etc.
- Helping ISACA answer questions from the press
- Reviewing translations of ISACA material
- Speaking at an ISACA conference
- Being interviewed during product discovery
- Reviewing One in Tech scholarship applications
- Participating on a certification working group
- Writing a case study
- Participating in a professional practice advisory group
- Advocacy
- And so much more!
As the Vice President, Content Development at ISACA, my team is responsible for much of the content produced by ISACA Global, including books, frameworks, white papers, audit programs, review manuals and the ISACA Journal. Our team is also responsible for the programming for ISACA events, including webinars, virtual summits and conferences.
I’m going to illustrate the richness of the volunteering experience by focusing on one volunteer example. One extremely powerful tool in the content development team’s toolbelt is the professional practices advisory groups. For each domain ISACA serves (IT audit, information security, privacy, risk, governance and emerging tech), we have a working group that advises ISACA Global as to what is going on within the particular professions. These advisors are ISACA Global’s eyes and ears to help our internal subject matter experts shape our content and decide what topics to tackle.
Each advisory group is composed of nine members from across the globe and facilitated by an ISACA Global subject matter expert. The advisory groups also review content in development and provide feedback to help us provide the most cogent and accurate content to ISACA members.
Over the course of the last nine years, I have come to depend heavily on ISACA’s volunteer pool. Not only do they help with specific tasks, but they advise leadership at ISACA Global on trends and what is hot in each professional practice, as well as challenges in each industry and region.
While giving back to your profession is one obvious reward of being a volunteer, another is that you can earn CPE for your volunteer time. It is two benefits rolled up into one package.
ISACA is fortunate to have so many passionate, willing and capable volunteers. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to give volunteering for ISACA a try! Learn more about open volunteer opportunities from microvolunteerism to working group commitments here.