The Importance of Tracking Volunteer Hours: A Quick Guide
Importance of tracking volunteer hours
Many organizations, especially smaller grassroots organizations have either a small number of staff, or no staff at all. However, they likely have a strong group of volunteers who put in a significant amount of work. Volunteers freely offer their services without getting reimbursed and many organizations depend on volunteer community service.
Countless nonprofits are lucky enough to work with some incredibly talented and driven people who spend hours doing the very important work of your organization’s mission. And long-serving volunteers can be a huge benefit for an organization due to their consistency, historical knowledge, and a value as team members.
Benefits of tracking volunteer hours
It is important for organizations to track volunteer hours so they can understand the true value of their volunteers’ efforts and their contributions to the community you serve. Some of the benefits to tracking your hours are:
Demonstrates the true cost of your programs. Since volunteers are not paid for their donations of time, it may appear that your organization’s operations and programs do not cost that much money. However, when you value a volunteer’s time at their respective value you will see how much it would have cost to hire someone at that same rate, and the true cost of running your programs.
Strengthens your grant application: Funders are often limited in their ability to fully fund every project due to tight budgets and the competitive process of grants. So, organizations that can demonstrate that they have other sources of support, which strengthens their grant budget, can have the upper hand. Many funders recognize volunteer time as a source of support. So if grants are an important source of revenue for your organization, or if you are considering applying for funding in the future, your organization should consider tracking the hours that your volunteers contribute to your organization. Volunteer hours can seem more impactful when converted into a dollar value. Finding the monetary value of your volunteer’s efforts may require a bit of research; however, knowing the full impact of your volunteers' donations of time is well worth it and can definitely help the requirements on your grant application.
Helps measure performance. For small organizations, there may be large initiatives you would like to start that could potentially raise a lot of money for your organization, but require a substantial amount of effort. How do you know if those initiatives are worth the time? For example, let’s say your organization hosts a large annual fundraising event each year that raised $20K in the previous year, and you are confident that you can raise even more in the current year. However, when you go back and track the contributions of your small group of volunteers, you realize that hundreds of volunteer hours went into the event. Furthermore, in the same year you had a small auction that raised $5K, however it only required very little volunteer support. When looking at the overall return on investment of an activity consider not only the amount fundraised but the effort and time that it took
How to track volunteer hours
To start tracking volunteer hours you can use a form, spreadsheet, or database to record attendance and the amount of time each volunteer contributes to your program. Your form for volunteer hours can also include the following fields such as:
The name of the volunteer.
Their contact information.
Date and number of hours worked.
Hourly value of the volunteer's time so you can calculate the total value of their contribution.
Also, if your organization has the capacity to have dedicated volunteers who can log the volunteer hours that would be most beneficial. Let the volunteers know the importance of keeping track of the hours and how it really benefits the organization. And train your volunteers on the system you are using whether that is a spreadsheet or software that can track volunteer time.
Tracking volunteer hours can really benefit your organization in many ways. By demonstrating your full impact, securing more funding or determining the real cost of operations you can use volunteer time to grow your organization and achieve your mission.
