From the passage of the Serve America Act and the launch of United We Serve to the recent National Conference in San Francisco, it has been an exciting few months for service and volunteering. Keeping that momentum going, NCoC is pleased to announce the release of the Corporation for National and Community Service’s annual Volunteering in America report, which provides civic activity rates and statistics for every state and nearly 200 cities.

As the nation continues to face an economic crisis, it will become increasingly important to evaluate how the nation— cities, nonprofits and individuals— are responding to the increased need in communities. The site provides tools, tips and effective practices to help nonprofits, communities and civic leaders strengthen their volunteer recruitment efforts and deepen their volunteers’ commitment to service. The Volunteering in America platform is a valuable tool to develop volunteer growth strategies and build the civic infrastructure of nonprofits and communities.

Volunteering in America tracks changes in the national volunteering rate and compares volunteerism around the country. To accompany the release, the Corporation also re-launched the VolunteeringInAmerica.gov website and published a research brief on how to engage and retain volunteers titled “Pathways to Service.”

Volunteering in America Key Findings
• In 2008, 61.8 million Americans or 26.4 percent of the adult population contributed 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth $162 billion, using Independent Sector’s 2008 estimate of the dollar value of a volunteer hour ($20.25).
• Despite the challenges of a tough economic situation, the volunteering rate held steady between 2007 and 2008, while the number of volunteers slightly increased by about one million.
• Over 441,000 more young adults (age 16-24) volunteered in 2008 than 2007, representing an increase from about 7.8 million to more than 8.2 million.
• Neighborhood engagement levels have risen sharply since 2007, with a 31 percent increase in the number of people who worked with their neighbors to fix a community problem and a 17 percent increase in the number of people who attended community meetings.
• As the economy slows and nonprofit organizations struggle to provide services on smaller budgets, volunteers become even more vital to the health of our nation’s communities. Between September 2008 and March 2009, more than a third (37%) of nonprofit organizations report increasing the number of volunteers they use, and almost half (48%) foresee increasing their usage of volunteers in the coming year. Almost no nonprofit organizations are showing a decrease in their volunteer usage.
• Volunteers were much more likely than non-volunteers to donate to a charitable cause in 2008, with 78.2 percent contributing $25 or more compared to 38.5 percent of non-volunteers.

With the release of Volunteering in America, the Corporation also updated the VolunteeringInAmerica.gov website. The site showcases research and rankings of the 50 states and the District of Columbia and almost 200 metropolitan areas in the U.S. The website gives individuals and organizations the ability to access and generate unique reports with the most relative data available for their region, state, or city. Additional volunteer research and new resources including effective practices, tip sheets, webinars and more for organizations and prospective volunteers are also hosted on the site.

In 2008, the Corporation for National and Community Service investigated not only the rates of volunteerism, but also the attitudes of volunteers, non-volunteers, and former volunteers to get a better sense of why people do or do not volunteer. Through targeted discussions in focus groups across the country, non-volunteers revealed the perceptions that have kept them from serving, and the things that might persuade them to serve. By looking closely at the reasons why volunteers stop serving and non-volunteers do not serve, both the Corporation’s Volunteering in America report and its research brief titled “Pathways to Service” can help the nonprofit and service community address volunteer turnover, encourage lifelong volunteering, and promote more active civic engagement.