Home / Resources / Volunteer hour value calculator
Updated August 2026
Enter your hours and get the in-kind dollar value — plus a sentence you can paste straight into a grant report or board packet.
For the period you're reporting on.
$36.14 is the 2025 national average. Your state may differ — see below.
500 hours × $36.14/hour
Paste this into a grant report or board packet:
Volunteer time has a dollar value, and funders accept it. Multiply the hours your volunteers gave by a standard hourly rate and you get in-kind value — the worth of donated labour, in money.
It does two jobs. It shows a funder or a board the scale of what your volunteers actually contribute, and for some grants it counts toward a required match — which can be the difference between affording a project and not.
Independent Sector publishes the national value of a volunteer hour each year, calculated from average private non-farm hourly earnings plus an adjustment for benefits. The current figure is $36.14, representing 2025, released in April 2026 — a 3.9% increase on the previous year.
It updates every spring, so check the source before a big report rather than reusing last year's number.
Independent Sector also publishes a value for each state, and the spread is wide — from $17.99 in Puerto Rico to $54.77 in the District of Columbia. If your funder is local, the state figure is often the more defensible one.
The state values live on the interactive map on Independent Sector's page. Look yours up, then type it into the rate box above.
Be consistent and be conservative — a number you can defend beats a bigger one you can't.
The national rate treats every hour the same. If a volunteer donates professional work — an accountant doing your books, a lawyer reviewing a contract, a designer building your annual report — many funders will accept the going market rate for that profession instead.
If you do that, note it separately in your report and say what rate you used and why. Mixing a professional rate into a headline average without explanation is the kind of thing that draws questions.
In-kind value for a grant report is not the same thing as what goes in your financial statements. Under US accounting rules, donated services are only recorded as revenue in narrow circumstances — broadly, when they create or improve a non-financial asset, or require specialised skills that would otherwise have been purchased.
So the number this calculator gives you is right for a funder narrative, a board packet, or a match calculation. Before it appears on a financial statement or a Form 990, check with whoever prepares them.
The Ember tool for thisEmber Volunteers totals hours by program and by person and calculates in-kind value for you — so the number in your grant report comes straight from your records, with unlimited volunteers on every plan, including free.
Independent Sector puts the national value of a volunteer hour at $36.14, representing 2025 and released in April 2026. State values range from $17.99 to $54.77. The figure updates every spring.
Multiply total volunteer hours by a standard hourly rate. For 500 hours at the 2025 national rate of $36.14, the in-kind value is $18,070.
Many do, and some grants count volunteer time toward a required match. Rules vary by funder and by program, so confirm what your specific funder allows before relying on it.
Often yes. If a volunteer donates professional work — legal, accounting, design — many funders accept the market rate for that profession. Report it separately and say what rate you used.
No. A volunteer cannot deduct the value of their time. They may be able to deduct certain unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses — that is a question for their tax advisor.
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Sources: Independent Sector — Value of Volunteer Time ($36.14, 2025 data, released 21 April 2026). Verified August 2026; the rate updates each spring — check the source for the current figure.