Value of volunteer time as in-kind revenue

Volunteers can’t deduct the gift of their time to our organization. But – the flip side of this – WE, the nonprofit, can claim it as a donation of in-kind service on OUR books. So you should be recording all volunteer hours that you can.

The value of volunteer time can be an in-kind contribution on your books. Often the value of volunteer time can be used as a matching contribution to a grant also, so it’s good
to keep track of. Finally, human labor is NOT FREE! And it’s important that we recognize the value of labor donated to our organization – the board needs to understand things have a cost, so let’s show what the value is on paper – especially if we someday want to hire for that position.

So, How to value it?

Professional services can be valued at the rate of the professional. If your web developer donates time to make the website, they can invoice you for the full amount and zero it out and then you can record the value of the professional service.

“Regular” labor is valued by the Independent Sector at https://independentsector.org

You can use their calculator to find the value of an hour of work for general volunteer work. So if the web developer comes to do community door-knocking, that’s worth $25/hour per the IS rate – not what they would charge per hour in their professional capacity.

How to track it?

If you’re having an event or other work day, use a timesheet where somebody signs off on who was there and for how long. There is a worksheet on the portal you can use for just this purpose.