# Your Volunteers Are Already Donors. Your File Just Can't Prove It.

Two in five donors gave time before they gave money. Most donor files cannot tell you which ones.

## Key takeaways
- 66% of volunteers donate to the same nonprofits they serve, and volunteers are twice as likely to donate as people who do not volunteer (Fidelity Charitable survey research, 2014).
- Two in five volunteers gave time to a charity before they ever made a financial gift, which makes a volunteer roster a donor pipeline (Fidelity Charitable, 2015).
- 75.7 million Americans, 28.3% of adults, formally volunteered through an organization in 2023, giving 4.99 billion hours valued at $167.2 billion (AmeriCorps and U.S. Census Bureau).
- A donor file with no volunteer flag cannot see the overlap, so the volunteers who would say yes to a respectful ask never receive one.
- Tracking volunteer hours in the donor file also captures volunteer grants: 40% of Fortune 500 companies offer them, typically at $8 to $15 per hour volunteered (Double the Donation).

Your volunteer roster and your donor file describe many of the same people, and most donor files cannot show it. In [Fidelity Charitable's survey research](https://www.fidelitycharitable.org/about-us/news/donors-support-charities-through-volunteer-work-and-grants.html), 66% of volunteers donate to the same nonprofits they serve, and people who volunteer are twice as likely to donate as people who do not. Those findings date to 2014 and 2015, and while no newer study has re-measured the multiplier, the direction is not in dispute. What keeps the overlap invisible is operational: volunteer data lives in a scheduling tool, giving data lives in the CRM, and nobody joins the two.

## How much do volunteers give?

More than non-volunteers, on every measure the research took. Fidelity Charitable's 2014 study found volunteers twice as likely to donate, with 66% giving to the very organizations they serve. Its 2015 follow-up, a survey of more than 350 donors, added the pipeline finding: two in five had donated time to a charity before ever making a financial gift, and half said volunteering inspired them to give more money, not less. These are classics rather than current benchmarks, so cite them with their years, but their logic is durable: a person who gives you Saturdays has already decided your mission is worth their scarcest resource.

**66%** — of volunteers donate to the same nonprofits where they volunteer (2014 survey research) ([Fidelity Charitable, via Double the Donation](https://doublethedonation.com/volunteers-fundraising-strategy/))

The pattern holds at the top of the giving distribution. In [Bank of America's Study of Philanthropy](https://www.ml.com/articles/bank-of-america-study-of-philanthropy.html), 43% of affluent households volunteered in 2024, up from 37% in 2022 and a pandemic low of 30%. Time and money are not competing gifts. They travel together.

## How big is the volunteer pool?

Larger than at any point in the federal record, and growing at the fastest rate ever measured. AmeriCorps and the U.S. Census Bureau count 75.7 million Americans, 28.3% of adults, formally volunteering through an organization in 2023, the most recent national measure. The volunteering rate jumped 5.1 percentage points from 2022, the largest expansion of formal volunteering the survey has recorded.

Formal volunteering in the United States, 2023 (AmeriCorps and U.S. Census Bureau)

| Measure | 2023 |
| --- | --- |
| People who volunteered through an organization | 75.7 million |
| Share of American adults | 28.3% |
| Hours given | 4.99 billion |
| Estimated value of those hours | $167.2 billion |
| Change in volunteering rate from 2022 | +5.1 points |

**75.7M** — Americans formally volunteered through an organization in 2023, giving 4.99 billion hours valued at $167.2 billion ([AmeriCorps and U.S. Census Bureau](https://www.americorps.gov/about/our-impact/volunteering-civic-life))

That record jump matters for the file work below. If volunteering expanded faster than any year on record, the newest names in your scheduling tool are the ones least likely to exist in your CRM at all, because they arrived after the last time anyone reconciled the two systems, if anyone ever did.

## Why can't your donor file see the overlap?

Because volunteer status almost never makes it into the donor record. Shifts get scheduled in a signup sheet, a spreadsheet, or a volunteer app, and the CRM never hears about any of it. Without a volunteer flag, the person who staffs your food line every Saturday reads identically to a stranger who gave once through a Facebook fundraiser: same fields, same segments, same appeals.

The cost runs in both directions. Volunteers who have never given money receive either no ask at all or a cold acquisition appeal written for someone who has never heard of you, which reads as tone-deaf to a person who was in your building last week. And volunteer-donors, the most committed people on the file, get thanked for their checks as if the hundred hours never happened. Both failures come from the same missing column.

## What is the ask no one makes?

The invitation to the volunteers who give time but not money. Fidelity Charitable's finding that two in five volunteers served before they ever gave means time-first is a normal path into giving, not an exception, and half of volunteers said the serving itself inspired them to give more. The behavioral research points the same way: labels grounded in concrete prior behavior are the ones that stick, and a volunteer's behavior is as concrete as it gets. The ask writes itself from their service: you already give us the hardest thing to give, and here is what a gift of money would let that work do.

The missed segment is easy to size on your own file. Take an illustrative roster of 200 active volunteers: if your overlap matches the 66% the research found, about 130 of them already give, which leaves roughly 70 people who show up in person and have never been invited to give money. Few lists of 70 warm names cost nothing to build. This one does.

> **Ask with the relationship in view**
>
> A volunteer's hours are a gift already made, not a down payment to collect on. The ask that works acknowledges the service in the first sentence and stays an invitation. The ask that damages the relationship reads like the volunteer was a name on a purchased list.

## How do you tag volunteer status in the donor file?

1. Export the volunteer roster with names, emails, hours, and last shift date from wherever shifts are scheduled.
2. Match it to the donor file by email first, then by name and postal code for the stragglers.
3. Add three fields to every matched and unmatched volunteer: a volunteer flag, hours served, and a last-served date. Unmatched volunteers become new records.
4. Build two segments: volunteer-donors, whose thank-yous should name their service, and volunteers who have never given, who get the invitation above instead of a cold appeal.
5. Keep the hours current. Besides honest stewardship, the hours are money: 40% of Fortune 500 companies offer volunteer grants, typically $8 to $15 per hour served, and the grant request needs your hour records to back it.

The match itself is the fragile step. Emails differ between systems, households share addresses, and a hand-built join in a spreadsheet quietly drops the very records it should connect. Donor Insights reads your contacts and gifts the way a fund reads a portfolio, so a volunteer flag becomes a lens on the whole file: who serves and gives, who serves and was never asked, and what each group is worth over time. The [methodology](https://donorinsights.com/methodology) starts from your own records, and the [platform](https://donorinsights.com/platform) keeps the segments current as shifts and gifts arrive.

## FAQ

**Do volunteers really give more than non-volunteers?**

The best-known research says yes: Fidelity Charitable's 2014 study found volunteers twice as likely to donate, and 66% give to the organizations they serve. Those figures are a decade old, so treat the direction as solid and the decimals as dated. No newer study contradicts them.

**Should we ask our volunteers for money?**

Yes, as an invitation that names their service. Two in five volunteers gave time before they ever gave money (Fidelity Charitable, 2015), so the time-first path into giving is normal. The mistake is not the ask. It is sending a volunteer the same cold appeal a stranger gets.

**Will asking volunteers for money push them away?**

The research points the other way: half of volunteers said volunteering inspired them to give more money (Fidelity Charitable, 2015). The risk sits in the tone. An ask that acknowledges their hours reads as respect, and one that ignores them reads as a form letter.

**How do we track volunteer status in the donor file?**

Three fields on the donor record: a volunteer flag, hours served, and a last-served date. Refresh them from the scheduling tool on a regular cadence, and match by email first, then name and postal code.

**What are volunteer grants?**

Corporate payments earned by volunteering: the company pays the organization for the hours its employee serves, typically $8 to $15 per hour. 40% of Fortune 500 companies offer them, and your hour records are what backs the request.

## Sources
- [AmeriCorps and U.S. Census Bureau, Volunteering and Civic Life in America (2023 data)](https://www.americorps.gov/about/our-impact/volunteering-civic-life)
- [Fidelity Charitable, donors support charities through volunteer work and grants (2015 survey)](https://www.fidelitycharitable.org/about-us/news/donors-support-charities-through-volunteer-work-and-grants.html)
- [Double the Donation, how volunteers strengthen a fundraising strategy (citing Fidelity Charitable, 2014)](https://doublethedonation.com/volunteers-fundraising-strategy/)
- [Bank of America, Study of Philanthropy (2024)](https://www.ml.com/articles/bank-of-america-study-of-philanthropy.html)

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Source: DonorInsights.com — https://donorinsights.com/articles/volunteer-donor-overlap