Volunteer Impact Tools

Volunteer impact occurs on many levels, the:

  • community served,
  • agency hosts,
  • volunteers, and
  • community at large.

To capture that multi-level impact, it helps to have a variety of tools. This section of the Volunteer Commons will be home to a library of tools and samples to support practitioners in articulating the many forms of volunteer impact.

Volunteer Value: More Than Meets the Eye Iceberg with volunteer value data above the waterline including: number of volunteers and hours, number of people served by volunteers and number of services provided, hourly financial value, and money donated by vols. Data below the waterline include passion; number of advocacy contacts; suggestions from volunteers; quality of service; voice of community; sense of purpose; trust and good will; legislation passed; skills shared or developed; referrals of donors, program participants or other vols; connections formed; shared stewardship of mission; greater understanding of cause. Making volunteer value visible by identify purposes for partnering with vols; determine if current data reveal vol contributions to mission, vol purpose, values, or community; share numbers that reveal the scope of vol contributions to the mission; tell stories that reveal depth or quality of vol contributions; and link volunteer numbers and stories with org goals.
Volunteer Value: More Than Meets the Eye (Iceberg)

This flyer uses an iceberg image to help identify volunteer impact that does not lend itself to being seen or counted. It includes tips for exploring data points that fit your mission and purpose for involving volunteers.

Volunteer numbers, hours, and hourly financial value are popular statistics for describing volunteer activity. Their use has benefits and limitations, not the least of which is that they can obscure the need for other volunteer value indicators. Benefits: provides dollar value for financial statements and in-kind grant matches; shows how many volunteers were exposed to agency mission; demonstrates community involvement; indicates people power needed to deliver mission; feasible to track and calculate. Limitations: prioritizes quantity over quality, risks managing for volunteer numbers rather than mission; omits results of volunteer time; does not link to mission; reduces diverse volunteerism to one value; confuses dollar value for cost savings; commodifies community. Try these alternatives: number of people served by volunteers; amount of service provided by volunteers (i.e., rides given, meals served); amount of money or in-kind gifts raised by volunteers; satisfaction
Revealing Volunteer Value: Beyond Numbers, Hours, and Dollars

This flyer outlines the limitations of defaulting to defining volunteer value in numbers and a financial value. It offers additional data points to showcase volunteer impact.

Volunteer Impact: Point of View Tool

The purpose of this tool is to identify how various audiences would define volunteer impact for a specific program so that you can tell a fuller story about it. Scroll down or click on the link below for directions on how to use the Point of View Tool, a blank template, and completed samples.

Volunteer Impact: Point of View