Why Nonprofit Organizations Seek Out Volunteers

Introduction

In 2015, the United States engaged 62 million volunteers who contributed 7.9 billion hours of service, the equivalent of $184 billion in income donated (Corporation for National and Community Services, n.d.). Volunteers have many reasons why they volunteer; however, the principal reasons are that they want to support a cause and help others in need. Additional motivation for volunteering includes networking, discovering new interests to pursue, enriching your own life and learning new skills.

Various nonprofit organizations seek out volunteers for a plethora of reasons and engage them in roles from aides to leaders. They assign volunteers to positions of trust in which the volunteer conducts customer service, manages money, and supervises other volunteers. Perform a search for volunteer opportunities on VolunteerMatch.com, an online database of current volunteer opportunities, and over 500 listings populate in the Metro Detroit area. According to their website, they currently have 102,289 active volunteer opportunities nationwide (VolunteerMatch, n.d.).

Organization such as the American Heart Association, the American Library Association, Forgotten Harvest, the Detroit Zoo, Sienna Literacy Center, and Wigs for Kids all seek volunteers in order to enhance their capability to carry out their

A prime advantage is that volunteers fill in the gaps significantly left vacant due to a lack of financial support in addition to a lack of a labor force required to achieve goals, promote missions, and accomplish everyday tasks. Moreover, these volunteers provide nonprofit organizations with services at no cost which serve, to a degree, as a measure for saving money. Another advantage of using volunteers is that you can fill in talent gaps. For example, Habitat For Humanity can seek out volunteers who are carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, and that like when they are building