UWGC STUDY TO MEASURE ECONOMIC
IMPACT OF COUNTY’S VOLUNTEERISM

If you ask nonprofit executives what their volunteers are worth to their organizations, you’ll usually get “priceless” as a response.

There are literally thousands of ways in which Americans roll up their sleeves to help nonprofit organizations, youth groups, service clubs, parent teacher associations, congregations and numerous other community groups accomplish things that would otherwise remain undone.

Their contribution of time and talent has been immeasurable, at least up to now.

UWGC, in partnership with the Volunteer Center of Gloucester County and the Community Service Corporation asked the Social Impact Consulting Group from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School to create a way of placing a monetary value on volunteerism in the county.

The students selected the project as a practical exercise for the Spring 2009 semester. They were asked to design a process that places a dollar value on the many different types of activities volunteers perform in the county. The process needed to assign and justify a specific value to the many different types of volunteerism and to consolidate thousands of different types of volunteer “jobs” into a small number of categories.

According to Jere Hoffner, UWGC executive director of the United Way of Gloucester County, the students exceeded all expectations.

“The group not only found a way to establish a logical way of valuation a volunteer hour, the created a system that can be re-adjusted to account for labor rates in other parts of the country, Hoffner reported, adding “what we thought would be a project that would help us here in Gloucester County will actually be something that can be utilized throughout the United States.”

The three Gloucester County agencies are all dedicated to increasing volunteerism in Gloucester County. The Volunteer Center provides people interested in volunteering with information about the many opportunities available. The Community Service Corporation provides volunteers over 50 to many programs and services throughout the county.

And UWGC depends upon hundreds of volunteers each year to conduct its annual fund raising campaign and to conduct the annual process of allocating funds raised to support needed programs and services.
The three organizations will be partnering later this year to convene a countywide effort to develop a strategic plan to increase volunteerism.

Study findings will create benchmarks for both the number of hours and the monetary value of those hours. This information will be useful in gauging the strategic plan’s effectiveness in encouraging more people to volunteer.

Organizations interested in participating in the survey can contact Donna Fanticola at the United Way office for additional information.