I’d like to do a small thought exercise. Imagine you’re in widget sales and make your living on commission. The more you sell, the more you make. It’s the end of the month, so you turn in your invoices, and your company hands you a $10,000 check.

You’ve done OK.

But as you look at that number, something doesn’t seem right. You know you worked hard that month, and many people bought widgets from you. You feel you didn’t just do OK; you did great. So you dig around in your briefcase, the glovebox of your car, your desk drawer—all over the place—and you find a bunch of invoices you never turned in. You add them up and realize you shorted yourself another $10,000.

Discovering your check was only for half of what you actually earned would be frustrating. You’d try to fix the error right away and probably set up a better system to prevent it from happening again.

At DAV, we aren’t in the business of making money, but our volunteers serve in roles that provide immense value every month to the veterans they help. That value comes from veterans having an improved quality of life, feeling supported, receiving assistance and being connected to other people.

In many cases, though, there’s also an economic value—a dollar amount—that can be assigned to the work volunteers do. The Department of Veterans Affairs says it’s currently $33.49 an hour.

Last year, DAV volunteers reported serving 584,661 hours with the VA through our VA Voluntary Services (VAVS) program. That’s an economic value of over $19 million and represents so many veterans helped.

But I believe those hours are way off, and the real number is much, much higher. Collectively, we’re not accurately reporting our hours through VAVS and our Local Veterans Assistance Program (LVAP). That means the economic value is underreported and volunteers are not fully recognized, but more importantly, our credibility could be called into question.

The volunteer hours we publish each year aren’t vanity statistics. We report these numbers to Congress, charity watchdog groups, our donors, our members and the VA. Accurate hours also affect volunteers themselves, which I’ll come back to in a moment.

Our volunteer hours show lawmakers we’re invested in the veterans we advocate for and in fulfilling our mission. Charity watchdogs look to see if we’re using our resources responsibly. Donors want to see tangible results from their contributions. Our members want to know they’re a part of an organization that is active and committed. And when the VA sees the hours we contribute, it helps us maintain our presence to continue sharing DAV’s programs and services with veterans and educating student volunteers about our scholarship opportunities.

For the longevity, relevance and credibility of our organization, proper reporting matters.

It means a lot to our volunteers, too. While people don’t give of their time expecting something in return, we always want to ensure they know they’re seen and appreciated. We do this in many ways, including recognizing them with small gifts and awards when they hit certain hour milestones, which we can’t do if their hours aren’t accurately reported. I strongly believe in never missing an opportunity to thank our volunteers.

Last year, past national commander and Department of Florida Adjutant Andy Marshall challenged his department to improve the accuracy of its volunteer hour reporting. It took effort, but the results were impressive. In 2023, before the challenge, Florida reported just over 202,000 LVAP volunteer hours. After the one-year challenge, that number grew to over 413,000 hours—an increase of nearly 105%.

Like the widget salesperson example, the department doubled its “paycheck.” It now has a system in place to help prevent missed hours going forward.

In 2024, DAV reported nearly 4 million total volunteer hours across VAVS, LVAP and the DAV Transportation Network. Like Florida, I encourage each of you responsible for collecting and reporting hours to commit to asking, teaching, auditing and following up with your volunteer coordinators, volunteers and members to make sure the hours you send to Voluntary Services are as accurate as possible.

I look forward to seeing the results.