I don't want to take away from my fellow volunteers here, but in our particular case we are strictly a federal volunteer organization. We don't report to municipalities or other organizations.
One of the things that concerns me about moving from volunteerism into fully paid in our organization is we cover Labrador, the Arctic, both territories--the north, period. If you wanted to take away from volunteerism and put it into paid positions, it would cost you billions. At this particular point in time, don't get me wrong--we don't have all our bases covered--but for the most part we are in a lot of northern parts of our country that paid employees are not. Basically it stems from people who live in either northern Arctic communities or coastal communities on both our Atlantic and Pacific coasts and our Great Lakes.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not taking away, but it doesn't apply in our particular case.