THE VALUE OF VOLUNTEERISM

Each and every year Elks and Royal Purple members work over 750,000 hours of their own valuable time in a volunteer capacity. That is a lot of bake sales, van raffle sales, park renewals, cooking, and dish washing!

Over the years we’ve tried to estimate how much Elks and Royal Purple Lodges contribute to their communities annually. By pulling statistics from various reports we were able to estimate that Elks and Royal Purple Lodges contribute in excess of $6 million to the betterment of their fellow citizens each year. 

$6 million is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but that is only the beginning of the contribution that our Lodges are making in their communities. We also (conservatively) estimate that Elks Lodges contribute approximately 550,000 volunteer hours each year as well. It’s probably not a stretch to estimate that Royal Purple Lodges volunteer hours could easily raise this number to 750,000 hours. The true number is likely much higher. 

Think about that for a minute. Each and every year Elks and Royal Purple members work over 750,000 hours of their own valuable time in a volunteer capacity. That is a lot of bake sales, van raffle sales, park renewals, cooking, and dish washing! 

Putting a value on volunteer hours is not an easy thing to do, however an organization in the US tries to do just that. The Independent Sector (http://independentsector.org/) estimates the value of an hour volunteered at $18.77. According to Independent Sector “the value of volunteer time is based on the average hourly earnings of all production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls. This number is then increased a further 12 percent to estimate for fringe benefits”, 

The validity of $18.77 as a fair number could be debated but it seems as good a number as any for demonstration purposes. A moment at my trusty calculator multiplies 750,000 volunteer hours by $18.77 per hour comes to a staggering $14 million. That is $14 million in value each and every year over and above the real dollar contributions. 

Add them together and Elks and Royal Purple Lodges are now contributing over $20 million each year, making our communities a better place to live. That’s a very impressive number!  

So, the next time you’re having coffee with some friends at the local café, or maybe talking to a member of the local media, don’t forget to mention the $20 million that you’ve help contribute to the betterment of all Canadians.