I agree with dcurtis. You can donate money instead of volunteering. If anything, donating an hour's wages is harder than donating an hour's worth of volunteer

I agree with dcurtis. You can donate money instead of volunteering. If anything, donating an hour's wages is harder than donating an hour's worth of volunteering (assuming your job is not as pleasant as volunteering, which by and large seems to be the case). You might make $20 an hour after adjusting for everything (this gets distorted because of tax deductions and the like), but people have to pay you to do it. You take more pain. While volunteering, you take less pain. Giving an hour of wages might be equivalent to giving two hours of volunteer time (in terms of opportunity cost). If one creates more wealth for the charity than the other, you should do more of that. It might not make sense to volunteer.