

And as Marc Lewis, executive editor at environmental news site Ecowatch mentions, “The greater the donation or contribution, the better the application will look in the eyes of the funder.” That takes some of the pressure off your fundraising team to meet high match requirements for competitive funding by simply calculating the overall value of your volunteer time.īut even if there is no matching requirement, showing the value of your nonprofit’s volunteer time can improve your chances of funding.That’s because funders like to know that nonprofits can rely on resources of their own to keep programs running. You can then include the value of your volunteer time as an in-kind donation in your grant budget. When you know how many hours of volunteer time you have (or how many you plan to dedicate to a program) you can convert those hours to dollars. So if your nonprofit is applying for grants - or wants to - you definitely need to start tracking the hours your volunteers spend working with you. And many funders will count volunteer time against matching requirements. Many grantmakers require that a nonprofit have matching funds before they can qualify for grant funding. Keep reading to understand the multiple benefits your nonprofit can experience by tracking volunteer time. To understand the true value of your volunteers’ efforts - and the true impact they and your nonprofit have on your community - you need to start tracking the time they give to you. While relying on estimates and educated guesses is easier than actually tracking volunteer time, it doesn’t help your nonprofit in the long run. You have to set up a kiosk or put out a form for logging volunteer hours.ĭownload Your Volunteer Hour Log Template You might think that tracking volunteer time involves a lot of unnecessary work. To understand the true value of your volunteers, you need to start tracking volunteer time. But you also need to know how much time your volunteers actually spend working with your nonprofit. To calculate how much your volunteer time is worth, you can use the estimated national value of a volunteer hour: a little over $28, as of 2020. With more funding, nonprofit organizations can do more work toward their mission - and attract more volunteers who are eager to help a worthy cause.

Understanding the monetary value of volunteering can help nonprofits better articulate their community impact and earn more funding. However, nonprofits do themselves - and their volunteers - a disservice when they refrain from assigning a concrete value to their time. Volunteers’ time is indisputably invaluable. 5 Reasons for Tracking Volunteer Time Win Competitive Grants Show Community Support Show the True Cost of Your Programs View Your Nonprofit’s Impact Attract More Volunteers
