Monitoring Monday – Tracking Volunteer Time

Nonprofit and community-based organizations are aware of the importance of volunteers and the hours they give. Without these volunteers and their time, most programs probably couldn’t run or provide the services needed to meet their missions. It’s important for organizational leadership to understand the impact its volunteers have in benefiting their missions and our watersheds.

Volunteer management is not just about volunteer recruitment and reports. Good volunteer management can pay off for nonprofits in a variety of different ways and the tracking of volunteer hours can really benefit organizations. Through the tracking of volunteer hours an organization can demonstrate a program’s impact, secure more funding, determining the real cost of operations, and show public support.

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 individuals who dedicate their time, talents, and energy to making a difference.

This valuation 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.

Many funders recognize volunteer time as a source of community support and can often be used as potential monetary matching.  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.

Understanding the monetary value of volunteering can help nonprofits better communicate their community impact with evidence-based data. This can lead to more funding. With more funding, nonprofit organizations can do more work toward their mission and attract more volunteers who are eager to help a worthy cause.

Knowing how much time is spent on certain tasks or projects can help an organization measure performance. Just as for-profit companies use key performance indicators (KPI’s) the number of hours used for certain tasks can be used when analyzing organizational development activities so that volunteer time contributions are used wisely.

Allocating a dollar value to volunteer hours is a straightforward way to calculate your volunteering program’s contributions. The Independent Sector, with the Do Good Institute, announced on April 23, 2024 that the national wage replacement rate is $33.49/hour in 2023. In California that estimate is $38.61, up from $37.32 in 2022.  If your volunteers contributed 1,200 hours doing water quality monitoring related activities, that would be $46,332 worth of value being contributed towards your watershed’s management.

Besides understanding the true cost of your program, volunteer time information is also useful to determine who are the motivated, high-quality, and reliable volunteers. Accurate and recorded data allows you to see just how much hard work each individual puts in so you can truly appreciate their donated time.  This could even open the door to offering rewards for hard work and exceptional time spent furthering the cause. There are many ways you can thank your volunteers though, so explore your options.

Data for your volunteer time tracking program can also provide valuable opportunities for the volunteers themselves when job seeking or to fulfill an academic requirement such as an internship, service-learning credit, or an independent research project.

As you can see, volunteer time tracking is crucial for the success of your volunteer program. Volunteer time information can be collected manually or using a digital tool. Whichever method is chosen to record volunteer hours, it will depend on your organization’s needs.

To start tracking volunteer hours you can use a form and a simple spreadsheet to record attendance and the amount of time each volunteer contributes to your program.

Your form for collecting volunteer hours can include fields such as:

• The name of the volunteer.
• Their contact information.
• Check-in and check-out time/date.
• Total hours worked/participated.
• Project activity and role title.

Erick Burres

Clean Water Team Coordinator

California Water Quality Collaboration Network Facilitator

Safe to Swim Network Co-facilitator

Email: erick.burres@waterboards.ca.gov

Phone: 213 712 6862 mobile

Mailing address: Erick Burres – Clean Water Team C/O SARWQCB - 3737 Main Street, Suite 500, Riverside, CA 92501