Report Shows Impact of Strategic Volunteer Engagement Investments at Nonprofits
Volunteers who are trained, supported, and strategically deployed can add measurable value to nonprofits seeking to increase their capacity to help those in need, build community and fulfill their missions.
That’s the key takeaway from a report from UJA-Federation of New York (opens as a pdf) chronicling a decade-long effort executing on Time for Good, a strategic volunteer initiative that benefitted dozens of nonprofits. Time for Good offers a replicable model to help nonprofits fully leverage volunteers’ skills, expertise and experience while also making the case for funders to financially support strategic volunteerism through their grantmaking.
Over the course of a decade, the $14 million UJA committed to Time for Good delivered a strong return on investment. In 2023 alone, the $1.7 million invested in the program enabled grantees to mobilize more than 24,000 volunteers who logged an astounding 333,602 volunteer hours. That’s equivalent to a year’s work of 158 full-time employees, or more than $12 million in value.
“In an era of reduced government funding and increased demand for philanthropic dollars, we were able to create and strengthen the volunteer infrastructure at dozens of nonprofits,” said Alexandra Roth-Kahn, Managing Director, Caring Department, UJA-Federation of New York. “Time for Good helped organizations understand that volunteers had value beyond fundraising support and feel-good experiences to actually help provide meaningful service at a lower cost.”
Indeed, Time for Good addressed the persistent challenge many nonprofits face: Willing volunteers are often assigned busy work or low-value tasks due to a lack of resources and know-how to strategically deploy them in ways that fully leverage their skills and keep them engaged.
“If volunteers don't feel like they're adding value or that their work is essential, they can get burned out or even turned off from the organization,” Rina Kattan Cohen, senior lead, strategic planning and grants for UJA. “We saw that when you align the volunteers' roles with things the organization actually needs, the volunteer feels better about their contribution because it's real and it's needed.”
After Time for Good proved successful creating organization-wide transformation with an initial cohort of larger nonprofits, UJA launched a Volunteer Accelerator program focused on organization’s identifying one specific need that could be addressed through strategic engagement of volunteers.
The approach proved vital during the peak of COVID-19. Research from the Initiative for Strategic Volunteer Engagement (IVSE) found that nearly two-thirds of nonprofits reported an increase in demand for their services during the pandemic, creating a significant strain on the paid staffers. Participating Time for Good nonprofits had fortified and empowered their volunteers in ways that allowed for faster and more robust responses to heightened needs during the pandemic.
A prime example came from the Jewish Community Council of Rockaway Peninsula, which saw demand for its food bank skyrocket as the pandemic took hold. Access to more volunteers and more strategic recruitment and scheduling practices enabled the organization to keep the food pantry open 50% more hours each week. That meant easier and more access to healthy foods for the increasing numbers of people in need.
Now that many of the nonprofits that UJA supports have adopted strategic volunteerism practices, Time for Good is transitioning to a new strategy in which volunteer engagement and associated funding will be embedded across all social service–related grant making.
“We want to inspire more funders to invest in volunteer engagement and infrastructure – and for nonprofits to view the budget request for volunteering standard operating practice,” said Roth-Kahn. “When we launched Time for Good ten years ago that was almost nonexistent. Now it’s a surprise if volunteer funding is not included in grant proposals.”
Source: UJA-Federation of New York
The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of NonProfit PRO.
