What is a Volunteer Worth?

Note: This first appeared in 2009.

During the Enid Amateur Radio Club's August meeting, along with the usual business, we discussed the public service events coming up that we would be assisting with. The EARC has between 10-15 different events locally that we help with each year by either providing safety for the participants or actually organizing.
The EARC  has even gotten the reputation as "the parade club". We help organize and coordinate the parade participants before hand getting everyone lined up so to all of the folks watching it is a seamless convoy of floats and important dignitaries riding in old cars. If you need someone to help you with your event, the EARC is usually mentioned first. We also work with our local police department manning road barricades and provide other safety oriented services. During this meeting we had two individuals from separate organizations asking if we could be part of their events.

It is about this time of the year that the club becomes very busy with several events.  The club will do a majority of our public service events between September and November. Our club's contact person is approached by organizations looking for assistance and then he comes before the club for input as to whether we can help. It is also about this time that the volunteers for the EARC start to feel somewhat overwhelmed. We barley have enough time as it is with family and work, now we add extra time with our club.

So what is our time worth? 

Independent Sector, a "leadership forum for charities, foundations, and corporate giving programs committed to advancing the common good in America and around the world" estimates about $20.25 per hour. "The value of volunteer time is based on the average hourly earnings of all production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls (as determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Independent Sector takes this figure and increases it by 12 percent to estimate for fringe benefits" their website states.  USA Today quoted that "nearly 62 million Americans do volunteer work" and contribute "8 billion hours annually". Ok, at least we can place a dollar figure on the time we spend working in either the heat, rain, cold, or snow helping a nonprofit group out. Now we feel better.

But is that why we really volunteer?

We could say that we get that "Look at me and what I can do" attitude, wanting the lime light cast on us. After all we are special because of our FCC license and our communications training.
But I think the real reason for offering our government issued licenses and our equipment and mre importantly, our time, for public service is the satisfaction we get knowing we have made a difference in someone's life.

Very few people outside our organization realize the frustration and work required to do a public service event. They don't understand the planning and the "early to arrive and last to leave" sacrifice that goes into a successful event. Our only reward is a seamless parade or a safe bike race where everyone leaves with smiles on their faces. Sometimes it is just a pat on the back from your fellow club member congratulating you on getting through another event, and doing it just as good if not better than last year.

Knowing that someone has placed a dollar value on our volunteer time helps by placing us somewhere in the wage world and maybe placing some worth to what we do, but that will change as the years go by and when you think about it, it wont amount to a hill of beans. The personal satisfaction you get from a job well done and the friendships we make will last a lifetime.

Being a volunteer has some drawbacks, but the rewards you get are well worth it.

I guess it is now time to cue the commercial.

Hourly volunteer wage-$20
Equipment used for event-$200
Serving our fellow man-Priceless

Mike/KD5OFF