Making volunteerism a paid position

I came across this column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that I think was written with honorable intentions, but missed the mark in its proposed solution and needs to go further if we're going to fix this problem.

"Turn volunteer jobs into paid positions"
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/43310492.html?referrer=facebook
"As more and more folks get laid off, the least experienced are often the first to go. In the Milwaukee area, there's a large pool of talented young adults who would be happy to do socially useful work, if we only paid them."

Essentially there are inefficiencies in our system where there are services that most of us agree are needed and beneficial (soup kitchens, litter clean-up, etc) but which no one of us wants to go out and pay for. It's the public good issue, and we usually rely on generous philanthropy or government programs funded by those lovely tax dollars to make them happen, or they don't happen at all.

Problem is that when these programs are staffed primarily by volunteers, you run into a whole number of other inefficiencies that can cripple the program. Most volunteers only come 1 or 2 days out of a year and don't vest anything long-term so there's little knowledge transfer or strategy, and even these "un-skilled" positions could be HUGELY improved with just a little skilled labor.

So what do we do? How do we find a way to 'fix' the system? Are we really content to operate in an economic and moral framework here in the States where these valuable services clearly aren't valued highly enough that they're pushed outside the supply and demand market? If business folks don't want exceptions to their rules of 'ventures won't succeed without a market' then why are these components forced to beg for their funding to stay operational? Business law would say that these elements shouldn't exist if that's the case since they're not profitable. Why aren't we willing to pay for them?

It looks to me more like a problem of proper valuation - there's got to be a way to present the value of these goods in a way that we want to pay for them and not just on an inconsistent donation basis. I refuse to believe that there isn't some creative solution to this issue.

Your thoughts?