“The most enduring and controversial question within the field of volunteerism is the one that relates to the ‘value’ of volunteers and the hours they contribute”. Andy Fryar This enduring question comes to the forefront each year during National Volunteer Month when Independent Sector releases its annual update of the financial value of a volunteer…
Category: <span>Volunteer Worth</span>
“The most enduring and controversial question within the field of volunteerism is the one that relates to the ‘value’ of volunteers and the hours they contribute”. Andy Fryar This enduring question comes to the forefront each year during National Volunteer Month when Independent Sector releases its annual update of the financial value of a volunteer…
1 Abandon numbers and dollars when describing volunteer value. In folk tales, when a gift is counted or priced, it loses its magic.1 2 Remember that you cannot measure everything that matters, especially when it comes to community and volunteerism. As William Bruce Cameron puts it, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not…
In a 2018 article, nonprofit leader Jan Masaoka called the nonprofit sector to task. She named the growing professionalization of the sector and its reliance on consultants as a step away from nonprofit roots in activism and the causes that drive it. This shift has led to increasing “sophistication” in nonprofit operations, with paid professionals more…
I often begin workshops on volunteer engagement asking people about their volunteerism and what was meaningful about it. Not once has anyone said that what was most meaningful about their volunteer work was serving 104 hours. Conversely, as a former nonprofit executive, I am keenly aware that organizations need to demonstrate effectiveness. Yet when we…
In June, I wrote a blog about the dangers of centering the service experience primarily on volunteers while the client, staff, and organizational needs took a back seat. The question of who we center in volunteerism has stuck with me (thanks to Vu Le’s post on who we center in fundraising). It got me thinking…
“Our lot as human beings dealing with a complex, multi-dimensional and paradoxical world, is that our knowledge can do no more than create a weak and rather uni-dimensional representation of that world.” Gareth Morgan It’s that time of year: National Volunteer Month. It also happens to be the season when Independent Sector (IS) releases…
Volunteers and the volunteer function are often overlooked in organizations. One reason is how we report on their work. Too often, the “value” that volunteers bring to organizations is reduced to their numbers, hours served, and an assigned dollar value for their time. These statistics are front and center in annual reports on service from…
If volunteers were a new technology or drug, every hospital would be clamoring for them. At least that was my impression after hearing Dr. Robin and Meredith Youngson speak at the 2018 California Hospital Volunteer Leadership Conference. The couple shared their moving story and cited findings from randomized controlled trials that spoke to the positive…