While working with leaders of volunteers at conferences, or one on one, I have repeatedly heard that the contribution of volunteer time is highly valued; but that this value has been difficult to measure.

There are a variety of ways to measure the effect of volunteer engagement, and each approach has its own specific purpose. Some methods look at the benefits that volunteering brings to the volunteers themselves. Some look at the monumental vision of how volunteerism shapes a community - or bigger yet, a society. Many approaches look only at wage replacement value in relationship to the number of volunteer hours contributed.

This last method, although perhaps helpful in the past, has become less useful as the sector has come to recognize volunteerism as something more than just hours. The Mission Points ROI model treats the number of volunteer hours consumed by an organization, as an expense. Viewed as expenditure, we would value volunteer time in the same way that we value money: we would spend only to the degree necessary, to best reach the mission of our organization. Consuming more volunteer hours might mean more gets accomplished - or it may mean volunteer time is being wasted.

The Mission Points ROI model allows us to see volunteer contributions as an expense, and in turn encourages us to manage our incredibly valuable volunteer resources more effectively.

Volunteer² (the sponsor of OurSharedResources.com) has created another free online resource for the volunteer sector to help calculate and report in ROI at www.Volunteer2.com/ROI You can also download the Mission Points ROI manual.