Tell the Congress to create a new personal income tax deduction linked to a person's volunteer service to nonprofit organizations! It would be a great economic stimulus without any additional outlay of government funds. 

Support the Gross Domestic Product, not the Gross Domestic Debt! According to Independent Sector, in 2009 the estimated value of an hour of donated volunteer time  is $20.85. (Please see below for more monetized information about the value of your volunteer time.)

1 / Nonprofits are corporations, and many have laid-off workers due to economic woes. To keep their workload on course, they solicit volunteers to do essential tasks ... often the work of former staffers. Annual reports boast to donors about the ingenious way expenses are kept to a minimum through donations. At best volunteers get 5-years pins, hand shakes, stars named after them, etc. 

2 / This is not to diminish the value of being compassionate, rather to highlight its impact on the common weal. While volunteers have the "satisfaction" of helping, it's like house-keeping / home-making and child-rearing. Volunteerism is not included in the calculation of the USA Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Whether or not it's an "oversight" left-over from the bygone era when such altruism was usually performed by "non-working" mothers, it's time for a change. 

3 / The Obama administration has heavily invested in promoting voluntary community service and should provide an incentive – a tax break -- for those who do. This would be a real economic stimulus ... and with NO EXTRA OUTLAY from the government coffers.

4 / Many un- or underemployed workers pay income taxes, such as unemployment compensation or tips and hourly wages of a new college graduate who’s working as a waiter until the big career break happens.

5 / Those of us with extra time to share and the inclination to keep our skills sharp while helping others should be rewarded.

6 / Currently only expenses (cost of supplies, printing, etc.) incurred in the service of volunteerism can be itemized on 1040. It is possible to quantify the value of this "donation" of expertise (measured in time); there are numerous indices online that can calculate it quickly.

PLEASE CONTACT YOUR STATE'S SENATOR AND REPRESENTATIVE AND ASK HIM OR HER TO SPONSOR A BILL TO CHANGE THE TAX CODE: INCLUDE DEDUCTIONS FOR VOLUNTEER SERVICE!

THANK YOU AND THANK YOUR FRIENDS FOR HELPING THIS TO BECOME A REALITY.

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What’s the value of your voluntarily (aka donated) expertise / time worth to you? To the organization? To the GDP?

Independent Sector lists the estimated dollar value of volunteer time for 2009 is $20.85 per hour. (Source: http://www.independentsector.org/volunteer_time)

To calculate the value of your voluntary service to a nonprofit organization, click on Points of LIght Volunteer Value Tool a handy online utility. (Source: http://64.236.54.83/resources/research/calculator.cfm)

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, a branch of the federal government and the nation’s largest grantmaker supporting service and volunteering, 63.4 million Americans volunteered to help their communities in 2009, an additional 1.6 million volunteers when compared to 2008, contributing 8.1 billion hours of service, which has an estimated dollar value of nearly $169 billion. (Source: http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov)