Before going into full-time vocational ministry, I had no idea how dependent non-profit organizations were on volunteers – which is odd because I volunteered at my church for years before coming onto the staff. Imagine the compensation costs if the church had to pay everyone that served the going rate for their skill. The going rate for sound tech (in California) is $38 per hour. I’ve read that a quality musician can make upwards of $100-$150 an hour. And elementary teachers earn between $20-$30 an hour. On any given Sunday, our church needs about 40-60 volunteers per service – that’s not counting all of the mid-week events that require volunteers’ skills – like bookkeeping, front desk assistance, youth leaders, childcare workers, and facilities teams. It’s not an exaggeration to say our church could not function without volunteers giving so freely of their time and skills.
Even though the latest statics from the US Census Bureau shows that volunteering is down 8% for women and 5% for men, 23.2% of Americans (60.7 million people) formally volunteered, serving an estimated 4.1 billion hours with an economic value of $122.9 billion. With impressive numbers like that, it’s hard to imagine any non-profit not wanting to employ this advantage. Here are three compelling reasons to utilize volunteers at your non-profit.
Lowers Compensation Costs
According to CalNonprofits.org, the national average value of one volunteer hour is $25.43 per hour. If small non-profits like our church had to hire all the volunteers that serve each week, it would easily add approximately $100,000 to compensation costs annually, especially when you factor in weekend and mid-week volunteer hours and multiply it by 52 weeks a year. Not many non-profits can absorb that kind of cost – nor should they. Allow people that believe in your mission to serve your organization and benefit from lower compensation costs.
Enhances Missing Skills in the Organization
Since many non-profits operate on tight budgets, they often cannot hire all of the skilled personnel required to perform everything necessary to accomplish their mission. For example, every organization needs to embrace and utilize technology, but for many small organizations, hiring an IT professional (in most cases, it takes more than one person) is out of financial reach. Utilizing volunteer IT professionals enhances the organization by providing the skills missing from the paid staff while allowing the non-profit to move forward and accomplish its mission. Of course, you need to vet the volunteers to ensure they can do the work and do no harm to the organization, but in my experience, people who invest their time and skill believe in the mission and want to help, not hurt the cause. Embrace the skillsets brought to the organization by professionals in their field.
Raises the Role of Staff
Non-profits are not immune to the impact of inflation, making it critical for organizations to maximize the use of every dollar donated. One of the best ways to manage compensation dollars is to hire staff that welcomes, motivates, and leads volunteers. For example, in healthy churches, compensation costs typically consume between 45%-55% of the total operating budget, making it critical for those getting paid to build and lead teams of volunteers. Utilizing volunteers raises the staff person’s role from “doing” or performing tasks to leading others with the same or even more excellent skills than themselves to accomplish the tasks to fulfill the organization’s mission. The organization must shift from hiring “doers” to hiring leaders.
The motivation for non-profits to utilize volunteers should not be to cut the compensation budget and “get things done” but to recognize that using the skillset that volunteers offer and hiring leaders will positively impact the organization and the budget.
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