If it seems like every article here is related to gas prices lately, that’s because the price of gas influences so much of what we do with our puny American lives. Want a vacation? Need gas. Want to work? Need gas. Want to drive downtown and pick up a few hookers? Need gas. Well, here’s another one: want to volunteer to help others in your community? Need gas. And unfortunately for a lot of those on the receiving end of volunteer work, high gas prices are pushing some people to reduce their hours spent volunteering or to stop altogether.

While every type of volunteer—from scout leaders to soup kitchen operators—are feeling the pinch at the pump, there are many less fortunate folks out there who need the help of unpaid, unreimbursed volunteers just to get by. And when volunteering includes lots of driving—perhaps taking patients to required medical treatments, or delivering food to shelters—the price of fuel can greatly impact a person’s ability to be generous. Worse yet, with the price of everything going up, more and more people who have never needed a helping hand are finding themselves in positions of need. Put together, that translates to more needy, but fewer volunteers to serve them.

Having driven over 1,000 miles this year alone to perform volunteer work (including 450 miles this past weekend), I have a great appreciation for the hardships volunteers are enduring due to high gas prices. What I don’t have is a lot of sympathy for their excuses if they choose to cut down or quit their volunteering. That’s because Uncle Sam is more than happy to help you pay for your gas that you use in the course of your volunteer work.

In case you don’t already know, mileage incurred that is directly related to volunteering for qualified charitable organizations is tax deductible. For 2008, you are allowed to deduct 14 cents from your taxable income for every mile you drive for charity. So if you drive, say, 2,000 miles a year for charity in a vehicle that gets about 30 miles per gallon, you’ll pay $280 for gas priced at $4.20 a gallon. But if you take the time to carefully log your mileage each time you take a trip for volunteering, you could deduct 14 cents for each of those 2,000 miles, or $280. Isn’t that nice how that math worked out!

While I’ve tried to convince others I volunteer with to log their mileage for the tax deduction, many of them choose not to—even if they itemize their deductions anyway—because it’s “too much trouble.” On the contrary, logging volunteer mileage is incredibly simple:

1. Create a mileage log book. Take a small notebook, and throw it in your glove compartment along with a pen.
2. Log your miles for each trip. Record your starting and ending mileage for each trip you make to volunteer for qualified charities.
3. Add ‘em up. Whip out the old calculator (or use a spreadsheet like me) at tax time and take a deduction for your charitable miles driven.

Of course, you’ll want to be careful whenever you try to tell the IRS you don’t owe them tax on every dime you make. You may wish to consult a tax accountant or attorney before deducting your charitable driving, and you’ll want to confirm that your volunteer work is being performed for a qualified charitable organization. But as long as you document your volunteer driving well, you should have nothing to worry about.

On a side note, I will mention that the Federal government has not seen fit to increase the deduction rate for charitable work mileage in over a decade. While deductions for business, medical, and moving mileage have all risen steadily (and are all at rates higher than volunteer work), volunteers have been stuck at the same deduction rate since 1998 despite rising gas prices. I think news of waning volunteerism will finally help to spur a rate bump for volunteers soon.