Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.  — Albert Einstein

We may not know if Einstein was an active community volunteer in his time, but his words provide context for understanding the growing interest in calculating the value of volunteer time.

Eric Plato, director of finance and administration at the national office of Frontier College, became interested a few years ago in how his organization could capture the value of their volunteers’ time. He felt that the organization’s financial statements didn’t show exactly what the organization was about. Explains Plato, ‘We always say we value our volunteers, but to actually see a number and dollar value has a bigger impact. When we calculated the value of our volunteer time, it showed that they are the biggest part of our resources – even bigger than government funding. That was eye-opening for the board and senior management.’

The fundraisers at Frontier College like the additional information, too. The calculations help them to leverage additional support when writing funding proposals and the communications team likes the new angle when telling the organization’s story. Plato is quick to point out, however, that the calculations do not replace qualitative measurements. ‘I always stress that. We’re not reducing volunteers down to numbers. This is a supplement. It doesn’t replace the stories. It’s another way of looking at the value of our volunteers in a snapshot.’ Plato also cautions people not to use the calculations to make comparisons between organizations since programs run differently and there isn’t consistency in the calculations.

Volunteers: Value Added

The model that Plato used for calculating the value of his volunteers’ contributions comes from the research done by Laurie Mook, director Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto, along with Jack Quarter and Betty Jane Richmond. The three first collaborated in the late 1990s when Mook was invited as an accountant to review work done by Richmond for her doctoral thesis on social accounting; Quarter was the thesis supervisor. With special funding during the International Year of Volunteers, they focused more specifically on applying the model to the value added by volunteer contributions.

Mook et al developed supplementary accounting statements that focus not only on capturing the number of volunteer hours, but also factoring the out of pocket expenses paid by volunteers and the skills they develop. Conventional financial statements only recognize paid work and the contribution of volunteers is largely invisible. Mook’s approach focuses on making visible the value created by an organization rather than thinking of organizations as users of resources.

Through hosting workshops and publishing fact sheets, plus the recently released second edition of What Counts: Social Accounting for Nonprofits and Cooperatives, Mook and her colleagues have disseminated their academic findings. A software package and an online course are in the works as well as an online community for people to share ideas and practices.

The funder perspective

It’s a good thing, too, because more and more funders ask about the value of volunteer contributions in their funding applications. That includes the Youth Environmental Network. Laura MacPherson, national director, points out that while they are a funder, YEN receives its funding from a variety of sources. Recently, Environment Canada and Canadian Heritage made it possible for YEN to fund three rounds of micro grants for youth climate change projects (grants range from $500 to a high of $8,000).

MacPherson says the government funders want to know the level of in-kind funding for each potential project, and that includes in kind volunteer contributions. From MacPherson’s perspective as the grant giver, the volunteer value calculation provides an indication of the level of outside interest and the potential for sustainability in each project – both predictors of whether or not it is a good project to fund.

YEN calculates the value of the volunteer time at $14/hour – equivalent to what a paid staff coordinator would expect to earn. MacPherson explains that YEN considers the work of volunteers as important as the paid coordinators so the same figure is used.

The starburst analogy

Linda Graff would say that it is exactly because volunteers are so significant that a different tactic should be taken. While volunteerism and volunteer departments absorb resources and therefore should be held accountable, she sees lots of problems with the predominant method for ‘calculating’ volunteer value – the wage replacement approach, which simply tells you about what you didn’t pay. ‘The fundamental principle is that volunteerism is not paid. So how can you attempt to understand it and value it by looking at what it isn’t?’ questions Graff.

Graff is not against counting hours and attaching a wage, but she is clear that it shouldn’t be labeled the ‘value of volunteering’. Her point being that you don’t have to attach a dollar value to decide if it’s a worthy investment. She strongly encourages the sector to start talking about and promoting the value of volunteering, but the conversation needs to focus on outcomes and what volunteering accomplishes. To illustrate her point, Graff asks how you can put a dollar value on a series of volunteers at the bedside of a dying child in the pediatric oncology floor in the last week of her life? What’s it worth to inject humanity into big systems? What does that do for the nurses? What’s the public relations value? What’s the value in terms of future donations?

The way Graff sees it, every act of volunteering provides benefits that emanate like a starburst to a range of beneficiaries. That is the value of volunteering and, states Graff, ‘the absence of understanding the value of volunteers will continue to threaten the well-being of this fundamental basis of community life upon which we have all come to rely.’

I wonder what Einstein would say?

Louise Chatterton Luchuk is a freelance writer and consultant who combines her love of writing with experience at the local, provincial and national levels of volunteer-involving organizations. For more information, visit www.luchuk.com.