One More Time - What’s Your Volunteer Strategy?

In my June 25, 2007 post, I asked the question “What’s Your Boomer Strategy?” and suggested that most nonprofits don’t have concrete strategies in place to tap into Baby Boomer charitable giving, volunteering and professional workplace skills and knowledge. I went on to highlight a number of excellent resources that are now available to help nonprofits craft such strategies.

More good news! For nonprofits that want to get serious about mobilizing volunteer resources in the service of their missions, the Corporation for National and Community Service recently released, Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings. According to the Corporation,

This publication ranks and includes profiles for 50 of the largest cities including the volunteer rate; the types of organizations through which residents serve; their main volunteering activities, the average hours per year and volunteer rates for age and gender demographic groups, and key trends and highlights. The report also analyzes social and demographic trends affect city volunteer rates and finds that there are four key drivers of volunteering: community attachment; commuting times, high school graduation levels and poverty; and the prevalence of nonprofits and their capacity to retain volunteers from year to year.

This data can help your nonprofit develop a volunteer growth strategy as part of your overall strategic plan. For links to an executive summary, the full report, and related resources, go to: http://www.nationalservice.gov/about/volunteering/cities.asp

Even more good news: To support your volunteer strategy development, the Points of Light Foundation has designed an Economic Impact of Volunteers Calculator that can assign a realistic economic value for volunteer time. Using the calculator, you can determine the value of the time current and prospective volunteers provide doing a wide variety of volunteer jobs. The Calculator estimates the appropriate wage rate for volunteer time based on what the person does and the value of specific tasks according to market conditions as reported by the US Department of Labor. To check out the calculator, go to: http://www.pointsoflight.org/resources/research/calculator.cfm