A short excerpt on the value of volunteering time versus donating money when choosing your tzedakah or tithe.

One of the primary roles of a company is to glean as much value from its employees as possible. This means aligning culture, processes, and responsibilities with each person’s skill strengths and intellectual interests. There’s a general idea in economics about complementarities, where the strength of a team depends nonlinearly on the people involved. It’s not about how well individuals perform in isolation, but how well they work together. In math: [ v(Person A) + v(Person B) < v(Person A and Person B). ]

A company’s role is to create the culture and processes that allow each team to succeed. You can have an amazing team of statisticians analyzing data, but without people who understand databases, compute infrastructure, and program compilation, they won’t be able to focus on their most important tasks. Likewise, if project management is disorganized and deliverables aren’t clear, a large portion of time may be spent targeting the wrong objective.

Individuals (e.g., Levi) can generally contribute in two ways: time and money. If Levi’s earning potential at a company is $80/hr but only $30/hr at a non-profit, this suggests the company has the internal processes and customer base to generate more than $80/hr from Levi’s labor, while the non-profit can only generate (x > 30) (assuming (x < 80)). The marginal value Levi can provide via earnings, (80 - (x - 30)), may exceed the value of their time spent directly at the non-profit.

The benefit of donating money, rather than time, comes from this marginal gain per hour (80 - (x - 30)), as well as tax deferral. Levi can effectively work at their company on behalf of the non-profit, rather than earning income and then transferring it after tax. (In the U.S., the benefit depends on itemizing deductions versus taking the standard deduction, so this effect is most relevant at larger scales.)

On the other hand, donating time brings Levi’s specialized skills, relationships, and creativity directly into the work. It also provides personal growth through community involvement, experience, and relationship-building—such as participating in shared activities like a knitting group, where the “output” is not only the material product but also the social connection and skill development it creates. These effects can influence Levi’s long-term trajectory—not just in skills and opportunities, but in relationships, personal growth, and contributions to their community—in ways that extend beyond the immediate marginal value of any given dollar donated.