- Title:
-
CFA: Value of the volunteer contribution
- Date:
- February 2001
- Organisations
- CFA
- Authors:
- Margaret Hourigan
- Location:
- Victoria, VIC, Australia
Overview
In delivering CFA's services to the Victorian community, volunteers contribute their resources in many ways. These contributions include giving up time that could be spent on alternative other activities (such as paid work and leisure), placing themselves at risk to deliver services to the community, and the personal financial contribution of volunteers and their families and communities.
In 1998-99, CFA volunteers contributed about 669,200 hours turning out to fires and other incidents. This represents over 97 percent of the total time that volunteers and career fire fighters contributed (687,500 hours) in turning out to incidents in 1998-99.
The volunteer contribution is conservatively estimated to be at least $370 million per annum. This is based on the estimated value of the services provided by CFA volunteers in 1998-99 using the Value of Output method. This method bases the value of volunteer provided services on the amount the community would be willing to pay to provide services with funded resources were volunteers not available.
