Reimbursement and Value of Volunteer Effort Research Report
Published by The Centre for Volunteering, March 2010
Introduction
The latest research report from The Centre for Volunteering's Research and Policy team examines reimbursement of volunteers for their out-of-pocket expenses as well as assessing the value of a volunteers' effort in the not-for-profit sector of NSW. Volunteer effort is represented in monetary terms as hours of work comparative to an equivalent paid employee role in a similar style of organisation.
Volunteer roles were compared with relevant paid jobs. A maximum of ten roles were selected for each segment reviewed with a further ten roles common to the NFP sector also identified. Pay rates utilised are adult permanent staff and adult casual. The pay rates are listed as wage per week (excluding allowances) and an hourly rate for each identified role as an equivalent full-time position (EFT). These rates are specific to NSW, however the Australian Government Workplace Authority was used in some pay calculations.
NFP organisations can use the tables in this report as a guide to determining the value of volunteer effort for estimating and reporting purposes.
Reimbursement of volunteers' expenses is a subject that has drawn a lot of interest and input from the Not-for-Profit sector via several surveys existing in the field. Tax implications are relevant for both the volunteer and organisations utilising volunteers. This study addresses the tax issues and is broadly looking at the extent to which NFP organisations in the Community Services/Health/Welfare, Arts/Culture/Heritage, Education, Conservation/Environment/Animal Welfare segments of the sector reimburse volunteers' expenses.
This research also focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and pro bono activities. Most Australian corporations do not appear to itemise employee volunteering programme (EVP) costs in annual reports. Instead it appears as a consolidated corporate social responsibility expenditure. Having conducted substantial research to establish this fact, a survey document was designed to obtain details of relevant corporations' EVP cost, number of volunteering hours and method of calculation used to ascertain the cost.
The Centre's projects have a predominant geographical focus on NSW, however, for the benefit of this project the focus had to be broadened to a national perspective. Many corporations that engage in CSR/EVP activities operate Australia-wide and much of their relevant data collection and reporting reflects the national perspective. A number of key NFPs also operate Australia-wide. A broadening of focus to reflect data availability was thus a necessity to this project.