Volunteer Time Financial Statement Illustrations

Nonprofit Finance & Strategy [1] • By Dennis Walsh, CPA • March 13, 2009 • Email [2] Print [3]

These financial statement excerpts illustrate the article, "Tracking Volunteer Time to Improve Your Bottom Line: A Complete Accounting Guide," by Dennis Walsh, CPA. See the full article here [4].

By reporting donated nursing and medical social worker services of $120,000, total public support (before earned revenue) increases from $250,000 to $370,000, or 48%. We also see that inclusion of these services in program expense increases the spending efficiency ratio from 80% to 83%.

Hometown Hospice Care explains the nature of recognized services, as required by GAAP, in the following footnote to its financial statements:

Note 2:  The organization recognizes contribution revenue for certain services received at the fair value of such services. Recognized services were provided by 5 medical social workers and 4 registered nurses as follows:
By adding this supplemental data, we see that Hometown Hospice Care has far greater volunteer support than indicated by the minimum GAAP disclosures alone.  The user of the financial statements takes away a better sense of the amount of public support for programs as well as the diverse range of volunteer supported activities.

See the full article here.