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Your Volunteers Are Already Donors
In my last post, we looked at reframing individual giving, opening the door for anyone to be a philanthropist in the way that feels right for them.
Now, this one’s for you, nonprofits.
Treating volunteerism only as a stepping stone to a board seat or to a check misses that time, skills, and showing up are the donations. When an org reserves its real esteem for large financial donors (often people or companies outside the community) and treats volunteers as free labor-in-waiting, it undervalues the people most connected to the mission and quietly corrodes the community it claims to serve.
So, what might it look like to broaden our definition of giving—and make sure the way we value people reflects it? It starts with a simple shift: seeing volunteers not as potential future donors, but as people who are already giving. From there, a few questions and reminders are worth sitting with:
Your volunteers are already donors.
Do you treat them like it? Do you list your volunteers? On your website? In your programs? In the annual report? Do you celebrate them when, where, and how you can? When your biggest thank-yous go to large financial donors (who are often people or companies outside your community) and volunteers get treated as free labor… people feel it. Recognition is just as much about what you make visible as it is about what you feel.
Major individual giving is down.
For a lot of orgs, it’s not coming back the way it was, which means survival depends on giving that comes in more forms than a large check. The volunteers you’re undervaluing? They may be your most durable base. The smaller gifts? Those amounts meant something to the people who gave them.
We’re trained to see volunteering as a stepping stone to a board seat and/or to a gift.
That framing misses what’s standing right in front of you: deeper roots in your org with people that care about the mission, not a tax write-off or pat on the back. You’re undervaluing the supporters most connected to your mission. And quietly undercutting the community you exist to serve.
Recognize every form and size of giving.
Time is a donation. Skills are a donation. Showing up, again and again, is a donation. Often it’s the only thing someone has to give. That doesn’t make it lesser. And when you make the time and effort to recognize that, the relationships get stronger. The org gets stronger. The line between “volunteer” and “donor” was never real anyway.
Action Items:
- Track and report in-kind and volunteer contributions with the same rigor you track dollars. Even assign them a dollar value internally.
- Recognize that as major-donor giving softens, a broad base of people giving time, skills, and in-kind support isn’t a “nice-to-have,” it’s what keeps you resilient. Build for that base now, not after the shortfall.
- Put volunteers where donors already are: the website, the program, the annual report. If financial supporters get a named list and volunteers don’t, that’s a choice your community can see.
- Thank volunteers with the same intentionality you thank donors, and report impact back to them, not just to funders.
- Audit your language. Retire “just a volunteer.”
- Meet volunteers both ways: keep a clear running list of specific needs and ask people what they actually want to give. Skills-based volunteering beats generic shifts for everyone because they stay engaged, and you get work you couldn’t afford to hire. Give them a defined way in and an open door.
- Build recognition that isn’t secretly a conversion funnel toward money. Value the giving that’s already happening.