Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management - Weekly

The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management - Weekly: "Managing Volunteers Is A Numbers Game



By Susan J. Ellis

One of thepraiseworthy accomplishments of the USA Freedom Corps has been to return the federal government to its role in collecting data on volunteering in the United States. Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Labor has released an annual report on volunteer statistics as a supplement to the Current Population Survey (the 2004 report can be downloaded at no charge at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/volun.pdf).

The very first study on volunteering (and for almost two decades the only available data) had been done in 1970 by the US Census Bureau. Independent Sector picked up the ball during the 1990s, issuing its Giving and Volunteering in the United States reports through 2001. As appreciated as this information was, it entwined volunteering with a primary focus on financial donations and no study can cover these two broad topics well at the same time. So, the new Department of Labor material will build a better base of data for measuring volunteering."

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