GET DAILY REPORT FREE
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.
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 to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to prepandemic rates of volunteerism.
The drop in volunteer participation was a wake up call for nonprofits, says AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith, and a real test of whether volunteers, whose habits and routines were disrupted, would return.
The survey on volunteering and civic life, conducted 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.
