Sanjay Shah

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• Sanjay Shah
• Deputy Director of Finance
• MS Society

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VALUING VOLUNTEER TIME

• This project reviewed the ethos of volunteering
  in the 21st century and looked at the methodology
  that could be used by a charity to ascertain the
  contribution of volunteers both in terms of the
  time volunteers give (in hours) and a financial
  value associated with this time.

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Introduction

• Why people volunteer (22 million people)
• Impact of Government Interest in Volunteering

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Introduction

• Why Value Volunteer Time
• Economic Value of Volunteering 41billion
• VIVA (Volunteer Investment and Value Audit
  Methodology)

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Why People Volunteer

• 47 of people volunteer because they were asked.
• 48 of the adult population take part in some
  sort of formal volunteering
• People aged 45-54 were more likely to volunteer
  then other age groups

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Change in Volunteering

• Volunteers wanted Flexibility, Creativity,
  Informality, Involvement, something different
  from the day job
• Time they have available
• Nature of the volunteering they want to undertake
• Expectations of the organisation they volunteer
  for
• Manner in which their involvement is managed

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Impact of Government Interest

• Tony Blair if you want to know what is good
  about our country , just look at our volunteers
• Compact between Government and the voluntary
  sector
• 66m- to involve young people in millennium
  volunteering
• 27m- to universities to involve students in
  their communities

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Why Value Volunteer Time

• Understatement of a charitys resources by the
  exclusion of volunteers from accounting
  information
• Major differential between charities and the
  private sector
• Enables comparison between charities
• Charities have to include non-financial gifts of
  time, equipment or other assets

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VIVA Model

• Created in 1996 to provide an economic approach
  to assessing the costs and benefits of
  volunteering
• VIVA adds up all the costs associated with
  volunteering(salaries, advertising, training,
  expenses, insurance etc)
• Calculate total volunteer hours by an
  appropriate rate e.g. National minimum wage
• Divide the total volunteer value by the volunteer
  investment to produce the VIVA ratio

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MS Society

• Large charity, complex structure
• 44k Members
• 4 Nations,350 branches (volunteer run), 19
  Regions,4 Respite homes and day centres
• Total Income 26m, Expenditure 26m
• Volunteers are at the very heart of the
  organisation and are involved in all areas of
  work from the Board of Trustees through to local
  support

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VIVA ration for the MS Society

• 9,000 Volunteers
• Total Volunteer Hours 990,704
• 5,003,055 (Using minimum wage)
• 6,003,666 if add on employment overheads of 20
• VIVA ratio of 7
• (for every 1 spent on volunteers, there is a
  return of 7

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Lessons for the MS Society

• Difficult to obtain robust data
• Based on a small statistical sample (larger
  sample required)
• Take volunteers for granted
• Investment in, and retention of volunteers
• Review being undertaken by Trustees and SMT

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Your Organisation

• Can you calculate the different elements of the
  VIVA model
• Highlights the value of volunteers to your
  organisation
• Is volunteer investment worthwhile