I am sure you have all heard the old saying that volunteers are the heart of the community, that we couldn’t do what we do without you. This is all very true, but do you know the actual impact you are making in the community? Do you realize that giving just one hour a week for an entire year saves an organization almost $1,500.00? Not only that, but that one hour a week allows RSVP to continue providing volunteers to our nonprofit partners. We wanted you to see for yourself exactly what your service does for RSVP-Northern Virginia, and how this is one of the MANY reasons why we appreciate and value you so very much!

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) is the federal agency that engages millions of Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads the nation’s volunteering and service efforts. In 2018, Senior Corps engaged approximately 220,000 Americans at 25,000 locations across the nation through its Foster Grandparent, Senior Companion, and RSVP programs (Warfield, 2018).

The dedicated Senior Corps volunteers join the more than 21 million Americans 55 or better who contribute more than 3.3 billion hours of service in their communities according to the annual Volunteering and Civic Life in America report by CNCS.  Their collective service provides a yearly economic benefit with an estimated value of $78 billion (Warfield, 2018). Check out where the D.C. Metropolitan Area ranks; spoiler we’re in the top 10!

2018 Highlights on Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV

1,862,736 volunteers contribute 148.7 million hours of service

38.3% of residents volunteer

Volunteer service worth an estimated $3.5 billion

https://www.nationalservice.gov/serve/via/cities

To put this more into perspective, here are some statistics about RSVP-Northern Virginia:

In Fiscal Year 2019 (April 1, 2019 – March 31, 2020), RSVP had 249 active volunteers serving in Fairfax County, Arlington County, and Alexandria city.

Those 249 volunteers contributed nearly 9,000 hours of service to the 45 RSVP partners across Northern Virginia.

Lastly, the almost 9,000 hours of service equates to $233,430.18 saved for local nonprofits.

All of this data is vital for RSVP as we submit reports to our funder, CNCS, every 6 months. That being said, we would not be able to report these numbers to CNCS without you! This is why timesheets are the “lifeblood” of RSVP. Even if you serve just one hour a week, or even one hour a month, those hours are extremely significant to our program and that timesheet is critical to our reporting.

We want to stress that every hour that you contribute to serve the community is immensely appreciated. Not only are you making the world a better place, but you are allowing programs like RSVP to continue to “do what we do.” So, in honor of National Volunteer Week, we at RSVP want to say again, shouting from the rooftops, THANK YOU!!!!!

Check out our “Thank You” video