Dollar Value of Employee Volunteer Time
Do you track employee time spent volunteering either on company time or on their own time because it was encouraged/supported by your company ? If not, you should. It is an important part of your overall contribution to the community. I believe that companies should value that time, add it to the value of other resources they provide in a year and report it all as part of their overall philanthropic efforts to give a more accurate picture of their level of involvement. Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, in his book Compassionate Capitalism, reflects a similar sentiment by encouraging companies to think about donating three percent annually – one percent each from cash, in-kind donations, and employee volunteering.
Some companies, like Motorola, however, choose not to include their employee volunteer time valuation in their annual dollar figures. Eileen Sweeney, Director, Corporate and Foundation Philanthropic Relations for the Motorola Foundation told me that Motorola has decided that their other philanthropic numbers from cash and in-kind donations are very strong on their own — so while employees do engage in volunteerism, they choose not to report the value of those hours.
I also went to the Macy’s website to see what they had to say there about their community involvement and was surprised to see not the $17 million number given in a newspaper ad I had seen but the figure of $74 million! Turns out the number given on the website does include employee volunteer time: “Macy’s encourages its employees to be active volunteers through the company’s award-winning Partners in Time program. Approximately 130,000 hours were volunteered through Partners in Time in 2006, which is valued as a $2.4 million contribution by the charities we benefit.”
At first glance that seemed high to me but it comes out to $18.46 per hour which is a bit less than the value for volunteer time published annually by the Independent Sector . “The dollar value of volunteer time for 2006 is estimated at $18.77.”
This figure is used by nonprofits and business to estimate the value of general volunter time such as painting a shelter or doing trash cleanup. Independent Sector’s website states: “It is very difficult to put a dollar value on volunteer time. Volunteers provide many intangibles that can not be easily quantified. For example, volunteers demonstrate the amount of support an organization has within a community, provide work for short periods of time, and provide support on a wide range of projects. The value of volunteer time presented here is the average wage of non-management, non-agricultural workers. This is only a tool and only one way to show the immense value volunteers provide to an organization. The Bureau of Labor Statistics does have hourly wages by occupation that can be used to determine the value of a specialized skill.
It is important to remember that when a doctor, lawyer, craftsman, or anyone with a specialized skill volunteers, the value of his or her work is based on his or her volunteer work, not his or her earning power. In other words, volunteers must be performing their special skill as volunteer work. If a doctor is painting a fence or a lawyer is sorting groceries, he or she is not performing his or her specialized skill for the nonprofit, and their volunteer hour value would not be higher.”
How many hours do you or your employees volunteer for organizations on behalf of your company? Does the $18.77 figure help you value those hours? Or…are your people providing more specialized skills valued at a higher level?
Tags: corporate philanthropy, dollar value of volunteering, Eileen Sweeney, employee volunteerism, Marc Benioff, Motorola Foundation
