Should volunteering be considered a value-added asset on the balance sheet of voluntary organizations at all? Will the economic consideration of volunteerism result in more downloading of programs and services by governments to organizations? Will such changes force organizations to engage volunteers in work that was once carried out by paid staff?

 

While it might be possible to design a strategy to calculate the monetary value of a volunteer to an organization, it is crucial that the qualitative value of the volunteer be considered by funders and the public. Voluntary efforts, by their very nature, cannot be measured exclusively in monetary terms. Doing so infers a hierarchy of value when comparing paid labour to effort and contribution offered of one’s own free will, without expectation of financial compensation.

 

 

An evaluation of volunteer contribution also cannot omit an analysis of their real accomplishments. How do we calculate the dollar value of a stay-at-home mom who technically earns no income but contributes her efforts to the local food bank? How does this contribution compare to the volunteer firefighter who may volunteer less hours but is responsible for saving lives? As Martha Parker stated in her keynote speech at Passing the Flame, October 2005, “judging volunteer labour by the standards of paid labour, i.e. by monetary standards, which are inherently opposite to the spirit of volunteerism, represents a clear acknowledgement of the inferiority of volunteer work to paid labour.”

 

 

We need to begin by gaining a greater understanding of the real contributions and accomplishments of volunteers. Donors, the public and volunteers want to know how much they contribute and how their efforts are measured and valued. However, doing so in exclusively monetary terms carries huge risk to the very meaning of volunteering. In addition to ignoring the qualitative value of volunteerism, agencies do not have the capacity to carry out the extra burden of monitoring and calculating the monetary value of volunteers. The insistence on this additional reporting requirement by funders can result in the organization being drawn away from its primary mission. Staff and volunteers are pulled away from the work they are committed to in order to meet the new reporting challenges.