For Every $100 Foundations Give, Only 19 Cents Go to Volunteer Support | Nonprofit Quarterly | Civic News. Empowering Nonprofits. Advancing Justice.

"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."

"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."

Volunteers are an essential part of the nonprofit workforce, nurturing community connections, cohesion, and change. Volunteer efforts occur across hospitals, disaster response, civil rights organizations, support groups, mentoring, immigrant-aid work, services for disabled children and adults, soup kitchens and food banks, animal rescue, scientific research, and movement leadership. Calling volunteerism merely "nice" dismisses and marginalizes these contributions. Framing volunteerism as necessary recognizes its central role in social change and supports calls for transformative investment. Points of Light provides new data underscoring volunteerism's centrality, though high-profile movements like Black Lives Matter are not specifically named.

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