A Goleta Valley Beautiful volunteer assists at a tree planting event.
We all know how valuable volunteers are to the nonprofit work done in urban forestry. Many of us would say that volunteers are priceless. But for accounting purposes on many financial forms, grant proposals and annual reports, we have to assign a monetary value to the work volunteers do.
Every year the Bureau of Labor Satistics quantifies that value for a non-management, non-agriculutural worker. The Bureau also quantifies hourly wages by occupation that can be used to determine the value of specialed skill. The national estimated dollar value of volunteer services for 2009 is $20.85 – up 60 cents from last year. The 2008 rate for California is $23.29, but value maybe increased later due to a lag in the release of state statistics.
For more information about when and how to use dollar values for volunteer hours worked.