It’s all about the money!

When did you last calculate how much money your volunteers “saved” or “added” to your project?

Volunteers should not replace paid staff but a simple calculation can help demonstrate their economic value:

Eg. Volunteer  receptionist. Hourly rate of pay for a paid position £9.40

Number of volunteer receptionist hours per week 20

20 x £9.40 = £188 per week

50 weeks x £188 = £9 400 per year

So perhaps the management team can be convinced that it’s worth investing some money on a volunteer receptionist training programme or perhaps this figure could be included as Match Funding for your funding application?

It’s not just economic, the quality of service, their enthusiasm and energy or the local knowledge they bring also adds value.

Do your volunteers:

–          Help you connect with your local community

–          Spread the word about your services

–          Carry out extensive fundraising and promotional activities

–          Bring a range of skills and experiences

–          Help you be a more inclusive organisation

–          Bring a high level of enthusiasm

–          Provide a more responsive service due to their flexibility

–          Bring a high level of empathy for service users

Can this be measured? The Institute for Volunteer Research works to help organisations measure the impact of their volunteer programmes. Simple feedback forms about how volunteers have made a difference to the quality of services someone has received can be very effective. We often take the added value of volunteers for granted but what would it be like if they weren’t there…… www.ivr.org.uk

If volunteers have helped with fundraising activities how do you share the results of this good work? Or perhaps you can share how many advice sessions have been held last month by your volunteers? Facts and figures can make quite an impact at staff meetings, in Trustee reports, as part of your email signature or perhaps as a headline on your website.

You could use a pictograph to demonstrate – see my example:

 

As always I happy to discuss in more detail Hilary.bell@cvalive.org.uk