In this column, The Unexpected Value of Volunteers, author Jan Masaoka takes on the underappreciated topic of volunteerism and provides some unexpected ideas about the role that volunteers can play in building nonprofit reach, impact, and capacity.
When the largest ($73 million) and most visible volunteerism organization in the United States releases a major report—titled From Nice to Necessary: Unleashing the Impact of Volunteering Through Transformative Investment—it deserves to be read and even pondered.
As I’ve argued throughout my column, volunteers are not a frill or a nicety. They are an essential part of the nonprofit workforce and nurture important community connections, cohesion, and change.
Unfortunately, the report from the Points of Light Foundation states that until now volunteerism has been seen as “nice” but not essential. (Although Points of Light initially responded to our request for an interview, we were ultimately unable to arrange one.)
Volunteers are not a frill or a nicety.
Such a claim dismisses and marginalizes the people who have volunteered in hospitals, in disasters, in civil rights organizations, in support groups, in mentoring, in immigrant-aid efforts, with disabled children and adults, in soup kitchens and food banks, with rescued dogs and cats, in scientific research, and in igniting and leading movements. In such areas, both staff and volunteers have known for decades that that work is both central and crucial.
So, the “from nice” part of this report deserves to be rebuked. But the “necessary” framing in the report is to be applauded, although we are somewhat startled that it is only in 2025 that Points of Light appears to have come to this conclusion. It’s noteworthy that the report also states that volunteerism is central to social change, although they don’t call out specifics such as igniting social movements like Black Lives Matter.
New Data from the Report
Points of Light indicated in the report that of every $100 that foundations give, only 19¢ goes to volunteer engagement. What this means is that while foundations often fund direct services, they do not fund support to the volunteer workforce that brings direct services to scale, nor do they fund the volunteerism infrastructure.
Perhaps one reason for this is that foundations are often unaware of volunteers: They rarely ask about volunteers in their lengthy application forms; there are seldom breakouts or keynotes on volunteerism at conferences; and foundation periodicals and blogs appear to be completely blind to the economic and social contributions of volunteers.
The report went on to state that “cost estimates for recruiting and deploying volunteers…ranged from $136 to $2,000 per volunteer,” depending on the type or work involved.
This estimate is too wide to be very useful, but at least it’s a step toward quantifying nonprofit costs, something the report acknowledges has not been adequately examined, and calls for better research on nonprofit costs and revenues related to volunteers.
Not once is government funding for volunteerism mentioned.
Without waiting for such research, nonprofits can start by estimating the number of volunteer hours and how much they spend on volunteer engagement to say, for example, that they have half-time of one staff person who brings 600 volunteer hours to direct service to clients.
Where the Report Disappoints
Although the report is framed in part as making the case for why foundations should fund volunteerism, the report also discusses corporate funding for volunteerism.
But not once is government funding for volunteerism mentioned (outside of AmeriCorps) despite substantial federal, state, and local funding for volunteer engagement in disaster response, county hospitals, firefighting, and literacy and STEM programs.
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Calls for more funding of volunteers must go beyond foundation and corporate funding and call for more public funding, which is already a key source of support, particularly in those areas mentioned above.
The report fails to mention online volunteering even once, although about 18 percent of Americans who volunteered in 2023 did so completely or partially online.
We desperately need research on what kinds of activities people do online as volunteers, how they are recruited, and definitions for what constitutes online volunteering (are Reddit or Substack monitors volunteers? I would say yes if their Substack, for instance, helps historians or people with MS.)
The growing trend of people volunteering in affiliated groups likely goes unmentioned. For example, groups such as church members, college alumni, service club members, neighborhood groups, and others may volunteer together at schools, homeless shelters, condition-specific health fundraising efforts, and elsewhere.
This model may be on its way to replacing the predominant paradigm of individuals being recruited and engaged. Points of Light could be a leading edge on trends like these rather than seeming to lag behind the field.
Biggest Questions Unanswered in the Report
Points of Light emphasizes a “shortage of volunteers,” and “half of volunteer roles going unfilled.”
This phrasing seems out of sync with how volunteer managers experience their challenges. A 2023 survey conducted by the Association of Leaders in Volunteer Engagement (ALIVE) showed that for most nonprofits, the limiting factor is staff capacity to engage volunteers, not an inadequate number of people wanting to volunteer (or too few employers or teachers who require them to volunteer). Volunteer managers often have too many of the wrong volunteers at the wrong times of year.
Just as vacancies in engineering jobs can’t be addressed simply by having more people enter the workforce, it’s unlikely that simply having “more volunteers” will address the real needs in growing the volunteer workforce.
We strongly agree with Points of Light that volunteerism requires investment—in infrastructure, in research, in professional growth opportunities, in technology, in convenings. But HOW will we accomplish reframing volunteerism?
The report specifically identifies action steps:
- Articulate what foundation investment “buys” in terms of the impact of various volunteerism components—such as training or technology—and develop ROI metrics.
- Push funders to shift their giving priorities, by, for instance, encouraging foundations to dedicate specific funding streams to volunteer capacity-building.
- Propose that nonprofits professionalize volunteer engagement roles.
- Encourage cross-sector partnerships to elevate volunteerism as a civic priority.
These are worthy calls to action, but too abstract to give those of us in the field much help.
Volunteerism is a “funding blind spot.”
We Need Stronger Reports
The report’s chief conclusions back up what I and other nonprofit leaders who advocate for more attention to volunteerism have said for a long time now:
- Volunteering is essential: Volunteers are not an optional resource. They are essential drivers of impact.
- Volunteerism is a funding blind spot, with only 0.19 percent of foundation dollars going to supporting volunteers.
- Society must invest in volunteerism—in nonprofits, in a volunteerism infrastructure, and by encouraging foundation and corporate funding
In reaffirming these important points, this report is a contribution to the field. But we believe the research and reports can be stronger, to better engage the field more widely to help toward our shared goals.
