Value of Volunteer Time

Putting a dollar value on volunteer hours will never do justice to their true worth, but it is just one way for us to show the contributions individuals and organizations have made in our communities. The estimate helps acknowledge the millions of individuals who dedicate their time, talents, and energy to making a difference. Charitable organizations frequently use this estimate to quantify the enormous value volunteers provide.

The value of volunteer time annual updates are released in April during National Volunteer Week. These estimates reflect the previous calendar year because they are based on wage data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and it takes some time for BLS to process and validate the year-end data.

You can find your state’s value of volunteer time by clicking the button “See State-by-State Data,” by viewing Independent Sector’s nonprofit sector state profiles, or by reaching out to Independent Sector on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or via email at info@independentsector.org. You can also access sharable graphics with your state’s value of volunteer time here.

No, the only available breakout numbers are for the value of volunteer time by state. To calculate additional breakout numbers, wage estimates for specific roles or subsector occupations would need to be available and the methodology would need to be adapted.

We are not aware of the value of volunteer time estimates for other countries. In order to calculate these, the methodology Independent Sector uses would need to be adapted on a country-by-country basis.

The estimated value of volunteer time values represents the cost of paying people to provide services. This is most relevant when discussing the labor force, as a whole, for a given state or for the entire country.

Special cases exist, such as a high-wage earner who does volunteer work that isn’t equivalent in cost (ex. A doctor who volunteers to coach Little League) or someone who performs highly skilled volunteer work, but doesn’t earn a high wage themself (ex. a retiree who volunteers their legal expertise). There are also cases in which the quality of the work performed by volunteers is lower than the quality of work performed by professionals, which may or may not be true for “skilled volunteers.” The state or national estimates are not designed to address these special cases. Instead, it is an estimate of an hour of volunteer service, in general.

Yes, fringe benefits are included in the final estimate. You can find additional information on the methodology here.

Many nonprofits use the national and state value of volunteer time values to demonstrate the return on investment of volunteerism within their organizations. To learn more, check out this blog post about why numbers matter for strategic volunteer engagement.

If you are using the value of volunteer time in exciting and different ways, please email publicpolicy@independentsector.org and let us know! 

Effective volunteer engagement requires a strategic approach that aligns volunteer efforts with your organization’s mission and goals. Please visit our page on Strategic Volunteer Engagement to for helpful toolkits and to learn more. We also encourage you to utilize resources from Independent Sector members the Association for Research on Nonprofits & Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), the Council for Certification in Volunteer Administration, Points of Light, and VolunteerMatch.

Independent Sector produces recurring and standalone research and analysis on topics related to the health of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. Annually, in addition to the Value of Volunteer Time, Independent Sector releases Trust in Nonprofits and Philanthropy, which examines public trust in the charitable sector, public polling on policy issues impacting the sector, and Health of the U.S. Nonprofit Sector, which examines sector health across four dimensions: economy & finance, workforce, trust & governance, and public policy & advocacy.

Additionally, Independent Sector’s recent standalone projects include nonprofit advocacy and civic engagement research and research on financial insecurity in the nonprofit workforce, as well as unique research projects produced as part of Independent Sector’s Visiting Scholar Program.