2002 Economic Impact of Arkansas Volunteers
Volunteer Service in Arkansas
Volunteerism in Arkansas serves a vital purpose. The level of services provided to her citizens would be greatly diminished without volunteers. Additionally, volunteer service has a significant monetary value for the state. The Economic Impact of Arkansas Volunteers was first published in 1984 by the Department of Human Services, Division of Volunteerism. The information is compiled and published annually in collaboration with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) Institute for Economic Advancement Research Group. The findings from the 2002 statewide study are presented in this publication.
The seven hundred eighty-one (781) organizations that responded to the questionnaire on the use of volunteers reported a total of 18,494,322 hours for an estimated total dollar value of $339,135,4581. Had the State of Arkansas paid for the time involved to provide the services donated by volunteers, an additional $6,790,415,314 in personal income would have been required to generate that sum in general revenues. To pay for the volunteer services, Arkansas' economy would have had to increase by 10.7% in 2001.
Numerous organizations have been included in the economic impact study during the past eighteen years. Six fundamental groups have been consistent contributors to the study for the past fifteen years. These six include agencies/organizations, counties, cities, public schools, United Community Organizations of Arkansas (UCOAs), and United Ways. The number of reported volunteer hours for these groups has increased from 3,196,426 to 16,789,978 during this fifteen-year period. Reports for the past five years for these six indicate an increase of 87.6 percent in volunteer hours. (See Chart 1)
1Organizations not having a basis for setting the dollar value of their volunteers' time used a $16.05 per hour for each volunteer's time and $100.00 per hour for volunteer hours contributed by board members, as recommended by the Independent Sector (IS) and released through the Connect America Monthly Bulletin.
