Giving Compass' Take:
- Volunteers have returned to nonprofits after the decrease due to the pandemic, with 28.3% of Americans participating in volunteer work between 2022 and 2023.
- How can your support help nonprofits in your community foster stronger engagement through volunteering?
- Learn more about best practices in philanthropy.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits in your area.
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From foster grandparents who volunteer at an early child care center to citizen scientists who collect water quality data in remote locations, nonprofit volunteers have come back after the pandemic, rekindling volunteerism in communities across the U.S.
A new survey released Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps shows 28.3% or 75.8 million people in the U.S. volunteered with a nonprofit between Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2023. That is a rebound since COVID-19 public health shutdowns tanked participation by almost 7 percentage points to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to pre-pandemic rates of volunteerism.
The drop in volunteer participation was a wake up call for nonprofits to work on rekindling volunteerism, said AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith, and a real test of whether volunteers, whose habits and routines were disrupted, would return.
“The fact that we went from a point in this country where we were telling people, ‘Don’t come, our doors are closed,' — The fact that that did not lead to a flatline or lead to a gradual increase, but to see more than 5% jump is pretty impressive," said Smith.
The survey on volunteering and civic life, conducted by the U.S. Census every two years, asks respondents if they volunteered at a nonprofit. It also asks if they informally helped friends, family or neighbors or gave to charity.
The free labor volunteers provide to nonprofits fuels a huge range of services across every kind of community in the U.S., with the survey estimating the value of a volunteer hour at $33.49, far more than the minimum wage in any state or major U.S. city, underscoring the importance of rekindling volunteerism.
At the Alpine Watershed Group, like many nonprofits, they describe volunteers as “foundational” to their work. Executive director Kimra McAfee said her organization has monitored the river and waters of California’s Alpine county for more than 20 years. Four times a year, volunteers go out to their sites to collect water quality samples, sometimes cross country skiing to get there, she said.
Read the full article about rekindling volunteerism at U.S. News and World Report.