Our Fave VMPR 2023 Insights on Volunteer Manager Salaries

For this year’s Volunteer Management Progress Report, the “Back to Business” edition, we included some fresh questions to try and gauge how getting back to business post-pandemic is shaping up for volunteer programs around the world.

In our 2023 questionnaire, we asked leaders of volunteers to share information about their own salary range and their current volunteer capacity. We also asked them to rate the current level of staff and management “buy-in” or support for volunteer involvement within their organization.

What we found was both encouraging and challenging, because the results show that volunteer programs around the world have fought their way back from shutdowns, furloughs, and challenging remote work situations to again being able to reengage with our communities and volunteers at pre-pandemic levels, while continuing the necessary task of advocating for and “selling” the benefits of volunteers to their own organizations.

In this week’s blog, we’re focusing on some of the statistics revealed in this year’s VMPR that highlight the effort that leaders of volunteers have put into getting “back to business,” specifically the trends in volunteer manager salaries and the effort those leaders are making to reengage volunteers with their organization’s mission.

What the VMPR Tells Us About The Range of Volunteer Manager Salaries

We’ve asked about volunteer manager salaries in previous years for the Volunteer Management Progress Report, so we have the data points to really start tracking the trends in this area.

The good news: the median annual salary is up in all four of the top participating countries in this year’s survey. In the United States, the median salary for volunteer leaders was up almost 25% since 2020. In Canada, the median salary was up almost 14%. Australia was up slightly at 1%, and Great Britain was up a whopping 35% since 2020 for median salary.

For more details on the salary question and specifics on the amount by country, preorder your copy of the final report HERE>>

How do Titles Correlate with Salary Range?

Here at VolunteerPro, we firmly believe that everyone in your organization should be involved in engaging, supporting, and encouraging your volunteers. However, there are specific roles designed to manage, train, and lead those volunteers effectively.

In this year’s VMPR, we asked about the job titles for those individuals. We also looked at how the various titles correlated with average salary levels. We looked at the titles of administrators, directors, coordinators, managers, assistants, specialists, as well as a few others.

The number one title reported on this year’s survey was “coordinator” at almost 39%, with “manager” following closely behind with 30%.

Interestingly, while there was a wide variance in individual respondents, the average salaries across the board were fairly close. The lowest average salary was associated with the title of “associate” at $34,309 USD. The title of “officer” received the highest average salary at $51,888.

What had a much bigger effect on salary? The size of the organization’s active volunteer corps. The survey revealed a clear correlation between the total number of volunteers placed each year and the average annual salary reported by volunteer managers.

The average salary reported for a volunteer manager with 1-50 volunteers placed was $38,264 USD. For the next tier, between 51-100 volunteers, the average salary jumps to $43,281. It continues to increase with each level of volunteer placement to the highest average salary of $57,323 with over 2,000 volunteers.

Simply put – the more volunteers placed, the higher the salary​.

Will your organization be adding a new leader of volunteers to the team this year? If so, download our free 29-page ebook, How to Hire A Kick-A** Volunteer Program Manager HERE>>

How Do Leaders of Volunteers Spend Their Time?

One very encouraging trend emerged from this year’s report: while some leaders of volunteers continue to juggle more than one task area, more leaders of volunteers reported that they spend the majority of their time on volunteer administration tasks.​

Last year, only 47% reported spending three-quarters of their time or more on volunteer management, the lowest in six years, And only 24% focused entirely on volunteer coordination, down 6% from four years ago. (Not surprisingly, volunteer managers with longer tenure were more likely to work full-time on volunteer program administration.)

However, it appears that we are on the rebound with 52% spending three-quarters of their time on volunteer coordination only 4% shy of a four-year high of 56% in 2017. This result may be due to the fact that part-time volunteer managers were furloughed during the pandemic (this research only includes those who were active in the past 12 months).

Or, it could indicate that organizations have an increased understanding of the complexity of the coordination and the staff leadership it requires. We see this as a positive sign!​

Engaging Volunteers and (Re)Creating Meaningful Roles

Every year, we ask respondents to share their biggest challenge. This year’s responses highlighted a new twist in an age-old struggle: creating enough meaningful roles to keep volunteers engaged and productive while organizations continue to build back capacity after pandemic shutdowns.

About 24.5% of respondents listed their top goal as either boosting volunteer participation or expanding volunteer roles at their organization in the coming year. Additionally, getting the needing buy-in and respect from staff was the #3 challenge faced by all respondents as they worked to reopen or create volunteer roles in more departments.

The good news: volunteers are BACK! While recruitment will always be a major focus for most volunteer-driven organizations, this year’s results indicate that the majority of respondents have seen a return to pre-covid numbers of active volunteers (on average, between 101-250 active volunteers).

The challenge that comes with all these willing volunteers? Right now, the jobs for those enthusiastic volunteers may not be back yet for many organizations, and leaders of volunteers are finding the delicate balance between recruiting and nurturing volunteers who may not have a role to play yet, and working to also build trust and relationship with coworkers and leadership to hopefully bring back or create new opportunities for volunteers to serve and support the mission of the organization.

A Year of Accelerated Growth for Volunteer-Driven Organizations

2023 is shaping up to be a year of accelerated growth for organizations that are ready to embrace it. If your organization needs some guidance to get that momentum going, try our Volunteer Recruitment Accelerator Coaching Program

This focused, private Volunteer recruitment Accelerator Coaching Program is specifically designed to help charities, causes, and public sector organizations attract enthusiastic, reliable volunteers, at will, and on-demand in as little as three months.

Stop guessing about what to do next and wasting time hunting and pecking for half-baked answers.

Instead, work directly with a strategic advisor with years of boot-on-the-ground experience in both volunteerism and today’s outreach and marketing tactics.

Start re-building your volunteer base more quickly with these four program components – 

1.) A quick start call to get you oriented to the program

2.) An audit of your current volunteer recruitment strategy and digital presence to find low-hanging fruit for immediate action

3.) Our self-paced Volunteer Recruitment That Works online course and bonus lessons

4.) 8 private implementation coaching calls focused on a purposeful set of program deliverables designed to get up to speed quickly.

Interested in learning more?

Book a free, no-obligation 30-minute discovery call, where we will drill down on the essential “what’s working now” tactics you must get right to grow your volunteer team and share how we can help you get from here to there more quickly.

LEARN MORE & BOOK YOUR CALL >>

We only accept a handful of private coaching clients each year, so don’t delay!

Details on Volunteer Manager Salaries…and More!

Don’t Forget to Order Your Copy of the 2023 Volunteer Management Progress Report

The Volunteer Management Progress Report is produced each year by VolunteerPro | Tobi Johnson and Associates as a free resource to all volunteer-involving organizations and leaders of volunteers. The 2023 Report, our “Back to Business” Edition, will be published in mid-January. 

Want to know as soon as the full results are available? You can preorder your FREE copy today HERE, and we’ll email the report directly to you as soon as it’s published.  

Got questions or want to be a distribution partner for next year’s survey? Email us at wecare@volpro.net to learn how!