(Washington, DC, Friday, April 12, 2019) – Across the United States, every hour a volunteer contributes to their community is worth $25.43, according to a new report from Independent Sector.

Multiply that by thousands of schools, clubs, places of worship, shelters, museums, and health centers all across the country and you start to realize just how valuable volunteers are. These nonprofits improve the quality of life for everyone, but they can’t do it without volunteers.

Unfortunately, federal law hurts nonprofit organizations’ ability to attract this valuable resource by severely limiting how much they can reimburse volunteers for donated mileage. Businesses can reimburse their employees at a rate of 54.5 cents per mile, but volunteer mileage has been fixed at a mere 14 cents per mile for over two decades.

It is vital for Americans to not only learn about the value of volunteer hours and the impact of volunteers, but to also support federal policies the strengthen the nonprofit sector and volunteers’ ability to build communities where all people thrive.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has the authority to regulate volunteer mileage rates for business and medical/moving purposes, but not for charitable activities. The charitable rate can only be adjusted through the legislative process, and has remained unchanged since 1997.

Previous legislative proposals would have both given the Treasury Department authority to change the volunteer mileage deduction rate and raised the volunteer mileage deduction immediately to the medical/moving rate while ensuring it doesn’t fall below that rate in the future.

Independent Sector is monitoring ongoing Congressional efforts to pass legislation addressing this issue, and supports increasing the mileage reimbursement rate.

Learn more at IndependentSector.org/valuevolunteers.