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2003 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 begun in 1983 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 2003 statewide
study are presented in this publication.
The seven hundred ninty-three (793) organizations that responded to
the questionnaire on the use of volunteers reported a total of 22,100,013
hours for an estimated total dollar value of $410,146,312. Had the State
of Arkansas paid for the time involved to provide the services donated
by volunteers, an additional $6,440,466,752 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 9.73 percent in 2003.
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 sixteen
years. These six include
state 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 19,362,750 during this sixteen-year period.
Reports for the past
five years for these six indicate an increase of
more than 100 percent in volunteer hours.
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.
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