Valuing Volunteers: Expanding the Relevance and Reliability Debate

Volunteers’ inputs to public and other not-for-profit organisations are significant. However, while statisticians gather data on volunteering, accountants do so less often due to a debate as to whether the relevance of recognising volunteer input in financial reports outweighs the reliability of that data and the costs of its derivation. This paper presents a survey of voluntary organisations that publish financial reports. It explores whether the promise of funding for volunteer effort has been matched with increasing financial reporting of volunteering. The results show there is little recognition of volunteer labour in financial reports, reflecting the unresolved relevance-reliability debate in the accounting profession.