The Independent Sector recently published a report on the value of volunteer time. It turns out that it is $18.77 an hour as of 2006. A chart on the webpage calculates the value of volunteerism since 1980. (Rather depressing to see that for much of my life, my labor was worth a whole lot more than I was being paid.)

There is also another chart that breaks down the value on a state by state basis. These numbers are in 2005 values since the state reporting lags the Federal reporting by a year. It turns out that Washington D.C. had the highest value at $27.44/hour. I am guessing the salaries of all those politicians, lobbyists and lawyers skews the results a little.

These numbers can be useful in reporting the value of volunteers to your organization. However, as the report notes,

“the value of volunteer services can also be used on financial statements – including statements for internal and external purposes, grant proposals, and annual reports – only if a volunteer is performing a specialized skill for a nonprofit. The general rule to follow…is to determine whether the organization would have purchased the services if they had not been donated.” (my emphasis)

Another guideline to note is that people donating their time to perform the specific skills from their profession can be valued higher than the general average, but only if they volunteering those specific skills.

“If a doctor is painting a fence or a lawyer is sorting groceries, he or she is not performing his or her specialized skill for the nonprofit, and their volunteer hour value would not be higher.”

All the information is included on a single web page with links to the appropriate sections of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Accounting Standards Board for those who are interested in learning how to calculate the value of volunteered hours more precisely (and legally).

My thanks to Grantstation Insider for the scoop.

Interesting developments in Buffalo, NY coming to me via A Poor Player blog. Facing a large deficit, the management of the Studio Arena took a number of cost cutting measures including eliminating 14 positions and reducing the number of designers for each show.

They also decided to collaborate with local performance groups and present two of their productions as part of the Studio Arena season. This is the type of thinking I, among others, have encouraged performing arts groups to engage in– partnering up rather than competing.

There was a little catch though that anyone seeking to follow my encouragement should heed. These partner organizations were comprised of non-union actors and the Studio Arena is an Equity house. Tom Loughlin who write A Poor Player includes links to three &nbsp stories about the conflict between Studio Arena and the Actors Union to provide the back story. (All Acrobat documents)

The theatre and union eventually came to a resolution and arranged for the non-union groups to be paid according to the lower LORT D payrate rather than the LORT B rate that the Studio Arena usually needs to pay actors at. The non-union actors will have the option of applying for their union cards after the performance runs are complete.

In his blog Tom raises some issues the newspaper articles don’t, issues I suspect won’t be unique to the Buffalo area. He feels that local Equity actors have never been able to win with the Studio Arena. He points out that the regional theatre movement was started with the idea that local actors could find employment. Instead, actors from New York City were hired with few local actors getting more than token smaller roles. (A long time trend I recently noted.)

Now, in tighter financial times you might think local actors would see more employment given that there is no housing and transportation expenses to pay. Instead, Tom says, the local Equity actors are being skipped over in favor of even cheaper labor from non-union actors.

The whole concept of partnering on efforts remains a good one. I hate to have to qualify my feelings in the context of this incident by adding: as long as it is done with the intent of strengthening all those involved rather than circumvent obligations. There is no evidence that Studio Arena sought to exploit perceived loopholes other than the suspicions people have about its motivations.

As one of the articles notes, union membership has always been a mixed bag for actors hindering opportunities as much as facilitating them. With an increasing number of theatres finding themselves on financial unstable ground and the Studio Arena precedent, I wonder how many more concessions Actors’ Equity might find themselves making in the near future.

With the movie studios calling for an end of residual payments to writers, actors and directors, it looks like some tough years ahead for union members on many fronts.