As we define volunteer hours, we need to ask ourselves:
• Is this hour that we claim for volunteering worthy of our privileged tax-exempt status?
• If I was meeting with a legislator, could I explain how this hour makes us a unique organization?
• Has this hour helped any individual or organization in need?

Current Definition
Volunteer hours encompass all hours from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans members and nonmembers involved in planning, preparing for, traveling to and working at all activities sponsored by a chapter and/or chapter service team (for both funded and non-funded activities).

People who attend chapter or chapter service team activities, but are not involved in the planning, preparing for or working at the activities, are reported as “attendees.” Their time should not be included in volunteer hours. (People who attend activities are gaining personal value by being present. People who are volunteering are contributing to direct community service.)

Meetings – Time spent planning, traveling to and preparing for chapter business meetings (preparing agendas, reports, completing reporting, purchasing supplies) can be counted as volunteer hours. The time of all participants who attend the business meeting also can be counted as volunteer hours (e.g., eight people attend a 2-hour meeting equaling 16 volunteer hours). These hours do not get calculated into help delivered, but do get reported to the National Fraternal Congress of America (NFCA) and the state of Wisconsin (where Thrivent Financial is domiciled and regulated) under the category of fraternal support.

Travel time – In September 2003, the definition of volunteer hours was broadened to include travel time. This includes time spent driving to chapter meetings and time spent driving to an activity in which they are volunteering (see definition above). If the IRS would allow for a tax adjustment, it can be reported as volunteer time.

Benchmarking
We wanted to see how our definition compares to that used by other organizations. We were able get data from five volunteer management experts, the NFCA, five fraternal benefit societies and four other organizations that work with volunteers.

Many organizations define what it means to volunteer, but do not provide a definition of what is counted as volunteer time. In that respect, the volunteer defines “volunteer time.”

Definitions of what counts as a “volunteer hour” for Help Delivered very closely match the definition AAL used in the past. We are using that definition for Thrivent Financial in the future. Volunteer experts also reinforce the need to focus more on impact of the volunteer hours, rather than the number of hours only. This is a focus of the “caring for others” measurement definition work currently under way.