Between September 2022 and 2023, the formal volunteering rate among Americans aged 45 to 54 was estimated at **** percent. The age group with the highest percentage of volunteers was ** to 17-year-olds, with **** percent having volunteered with at least one organization in the same year.

Introduction

Volunteering Statistics: The concept of volunteering is essential in building communities and providing services that many organizations cannot afford. It also provides the volunteers with a sense of achievement. In the year 2024, there are so many people devoting their time and energy to different endeavors, which tells a lot about the importance of volunteering in this present age.

This article provides the fundamental volunteering statistics for the year 2024 while focusing on the benefits of this act to time, population, and money used.

This statistic displays the percentage of the population volunteering in the U.S. from 2008 to 2023. Between September 2022 and September 2023, about 28.3 percent of adults in America were volunteering, a significant increase from the low rates seen in 2020 and 2021.

The data for this website were collected through two supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS); the Volunteer Supplement and the Civic Supplement. The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households, (approximately 100,000 adults) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The selected supplements collect data on the volunteering, voting, and civic activities of adults age 16 and older for volunteering and 18 and older for the civic supplement. Volunteers are considered individuals who performed unpaid volunteer activities through or for an organization at any point during the 12-month period, from September 1 of the prior year through the survey week in September of the survey year.

This statistic displays the number of formal volunteers in the U.S. from 2008 to 2023. Between September 2022 and September 2023, about 75.7 million adults in America were volunteering, a significant increase from the low rates seen in 2020 and 2021.

While volunteering can take place in a variety of contexts, such as in a political, religious or municipal organization, with one or more individuals, or in a virtual setting, most French volunteers are active in associations. Between 2010 and 2016, the proportion of people volunteering in associations increased. In 2010, **** percent of French people were volunteers, compared to one quarter in 2016. Since then, this proportion has been declining, and reached **** percent in 2022. Who are the volunteers? Over the period from 2010 to 2022, with the exception of 2019, the share of men active in associations was higher than that of women. In 2022, ** percent of men were volunteers, compared with ** percent of their female counterparts.
Regarding the age of the volunteers, it is necessary to wait until the ***** age group to observe a significant increase (nearly ten points) in the share of French people involved in an association. This proportion peaks between the ages of ** and ** (** percent), and remains high until the age of **. Older people are also more likely to participate in volunteer activities on a weekly basis than younger French people. In contrast, only ** percent of people aged ***** were volunteering in an association in 2022. In addition, the higher the level of diploma, the more common it is to volunteer in an association. In 2022, ** percent of people with a higher education degree were involved in an association, compared to ** percent of those with only a baccalaureat, and ** percent of those with a vocational training certificate or a vocational diploma.
Volunteer motivations Feeling useful and acting for others is the main driving force behind volunteers who get involved in unpaid activities as diverse as sports, culture or leisure, humanitarian work, health, social action, defence of rights, defence of the environment and biodiversity, or education. Many are also involved for personal fulfillment or because of the cause they are defending. Moreover, when we look at the expressions that volunteers use to describe their activity, the notions of citizenship and usefulness are the most often mentioned.
In 2022, more than seven out of ten volunteers cited contact and exchange with others as the main source of satisfaction in their activity. Many of them also found satisfaction in the pleasure of being useful and efficient, as well as in the conviviality of the environment.

Interruption of the commitment The study conducted by the IFOP institute in January 2022 revealed that ** percent of the French have once volunteered for an association, but are no longer involved today. Among the reasons mentioned by the latter for having stopped their commitment, the most often cited are lack of time (** percent), change of personal or professional life (** percent), as well as the wish to think more about oneself and one's loved ones (** percent).

The Current Population Survey Civic Engagement and Volunteering (CEV) Supplement is the most robust longitudinal survey about volunteerism and other forms of civic engagement in the United States. Produced by AmeriCorps in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, the CEV takes the pulse of our nation’s civic health every two years. The data on this page was collected in September 2021. The CEV can generate reliable estimates at the national level, within states and the District of Columbia, and in the largest twelve Metropolitan Statistical Areas to support evidence-based decision making and efforts to understand how people make a difference in communities across the country. Click on "Export" to download and review an excerpt from the 2021 CEV Analytic Codebook that shows the variables available in the analytic CEV datasets produced by AmeriCorps. Click on "Show More" to download and review the following 2021 CEV data and resources provided as attachments: 1) 2021 CEV Dataset Fact Sheet – brief summary of technical aspects of the 2021 CEV dataset. 2) CEV FAQs – answers to frequently asked technical questions about the CEV 3) Constructs and measures in the CEV 4) 2021 CEV Analytic Data and Setup Files – analytic dataset in Stata (.dta), R (.rdata), SPSS (.sav), and Excel (.csv) formats, codebook for analytic dataset, and Stata code (.do) to convert raw dataset to analytic formatting produced by AmeriCorps. These files were updated on January 16, 2025 to correct erroneous missing values for the ssupwgt variable. 5) 2021 CEV Technical Documentation – codebook for raw dataset and full supplement documentation produced by U.S. Census Bureau 6) Nonresponse Bias Analysis produced by U.S. Census Bureau 7) 2021 CEV Raw Data and Read In Files – raw dataset in Stata (.dta) format, Stata code (.do) and dictionary file (.dct) to read ASCII dataset (.dat) into Stata using layout files (.lis)

Volunteer rate and distribution of volunteer hours, population aged 15 and over, age group, 2013.

1. Environmental volunteering can benefit participants and nature through improving physical and mental wellbeing while encouraging environmental stewardship. To enhance achievement of these outcomes, conservation organisations need to reach different groups of people to increase participation in environmental volunteering. This paper explores what engages communities searching online for environmental volunteering.
   

2. We conducted a literature review of 1032 papers to determine key factors fostering participation by existing volunteers in environmental projects. We found the most important factor was to tailor projects to the motivations of participants. Also important were: promoting projects to people with relevant interests; meeting the perceived benefits of volunteers and removing barriers to participation.
   

3. We then assessed the composition and factors fostering participation of the NatureVolunteers’s online community (n = 2216) of potential environmental volunteers and compared findings with those from the literature review. We asked whether projects advertised by conservation organisations meet motivations and interests of this online community.
   

4. Using Facebook insights and Google Analytics we found that the online community were on average younger than extant communities observed in studies of environmental volunteering. Their motivations were also different as they were more interested in physical activity and using skills and less in social factors. They also exhibited preference for projects which are outdoor based, and which offer close contact with wildlife. Finally, we found that the online community showed a stronger preference for habitat improvement projects over those involving species-survey based citizen science.
   

5. Our results demonstrate mis-matches between what our online community are looking for and what is advertised by conservation organisations. The online community are looking for projects which are more solitary, more physically active and more accessible by organised transport. We discuss how our results may be used by conservation organisations to better engage with more people searching for environmental volunteering opportunities online.
   

6. We conclude that there is a pool of young people attracted to environmental volunteering projects whose interests are different to those of current volunteers. If conservation organisations can develop projects that meet these interests, they can engage larger and more diverse communities in nature volunteering.
   

Methods The data set consists of separate sheets for each set of results presented in the paper. Each sheet contains the full data, summary descriptive statistics analysis and graphs presented in the paper. The method for collection and processing of the dataset in each sheet is as follows:

The data set for results presented in Figure 1 in the paper - Sheet: "Literature"

We conducted a review of literature on improving participation within nature conservation projects. This enabled us to determine what the most important factors were for participating in environmental projects, the composition of the populations sampled and the methods by which data were collected. The search terms used were (Environment* OR nature OR conservation) AND (Volunteer* OR “citizen science”) AND (Recruit* OR participat* OR retain* OR interest*). We reviewed all articles identified in the Web of Science database and the first 50 articles sorted for relevance in Google Scholar on the 22nd October 2019. Articles were first reviewed by title, secondly by abstract and thirdly by full text. They were retained or excluded according to criteria agreed by the authors of this paper. These criteria were as follows - that the paper topic was volunteering in the environment, including citizen science, community-based projects and conservation abroad, and included the study of factors which could improve participation in projects. Papers were excluded for topics irrelevant to this study, the most frequent being the outcomes of volunteering for participants (such as behavioural change and knowledge gain), improving citizen science data and the usefulness of citizen science data. The remaining final set of selected papers was then read to extract information on the factors influencing participation, the population sampled and the data collection methods. In total 1032 papers were reviewed of which 31 comprised the final selected set read in full. Four factors were identified in these papers which improve volunteer recruitment and retention. These were: tailoring projects to the motivations of participants, promoting projects to people with relevant hobbies and interests, meeting the perceived benefits of volunteers and removing barriers to participation.

The data set for results presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the paper - Sheet "Demographics"

To determine if the motivations and interests expressed by volunteers in literature were representative of wider society, NatureVolunteers was exhibited at three UK public engagement events during May and June 2019; Hullabaloo Festival (Isle of Wight), The Great Wildlife Exploration (Bournemouth) and Festival of Nature (Bristol). This allowed us to engage with people who may not have ordinarily considered volunteering and encourage people to use the website. A combination of surveys and semi-structured interviews were used to collect information from the public regarding demographics and volunteering. In line with our ethics approval, no personal data were collected that could identify individuals and all participants gave informed consent for their anonymous information to be used for research purposes. The semi-structured interviews consisted of conducting the survey in a conversation with the respondent, rather than the respondent filling in the questionnaire privately and responses were recorded immediately by the interviewer. Hullabaloo Festival was a free discovery and exploration event where NatureVolunteers had a small display and surveys available. The Great Wildlife Exploration was a Bioblitz designed to highlight the importance of urban greenspaces where we had a stall with wildlife crafts promoting NatureVolunteers. The Festival of Nature was the UK’s largest nature-based festival in 2019 where we again had wildlife crafts available promoting NatureVolunteers. The surveys conducted at these events sampled a population of people who already expressed an interest in nature and the environment by attending the events and visiting the NatureVolunteers stand. In total 100 completed surveys were received from the events NatureVolunteers exhibited at; 21 from Hullabaloo Festival, 25 from the Great Wildlife Exploration and 54 from the Festival of Nature. At Hullabaloo Festival information on gender was not recorded for all responses and was consequently entered as “unrecorded”.

OVERALL DESCRIPTION OF METHOD DATA COLLECTION FOR ALL OTHER RESULTS (Figures 4-7 and Tables 1-2)

The remaining data were all collected from the NatureVolunteers website. The NatureVolunteers website https://www.naturevolunteers.uk/ was set up in 2018 with funding support from the Higher Education Innovation Fund to expand the range of people accessing nature volunteering opportunities in the UK. It is designed to particularly appeal to people who are new to nature volunteering including young adults wishing to expand their horizons, families looking for ways connect with nature to enhance well-being and older people wishing to share their time and life experiences to help nature. In addition, it was designed to be helpful to professionals working in the countryside & wildlife conservation sectors who wish to enhance their skills through volunteering. As part of the website’s development we created and used an online project database, www.naturevolunteers.uk (hereafter referred to as NatureVolunteers), to assess the needs and interests of our online community. Our research work was granted ethical approval by the Bournemouth University Ethics Committee. The website collects entirely anonymous data on our online community of website users that enables us to evaluate what sort of projects and project attributes most appeal to our online community. Visitors using the website to find projects are informed as part of the guidance on using the search function that this fully anonymous information is collected by the website to enhance and share research understanding of how conservation organisations can tailor their future projects to better match the interests of potential volunteers. Our online community was built up over the 2018-2019 through open advertising of the website nationally through the social media channels of our partner conservation organisations, through a range of public engagement in science events and nature-based festivals across southern England and through our extended network of friends and families, their own social media networks and the NatureVolunteers website’s own social network on Facebook and Twitter. There were 2216 searches for projects on NatureVolunteers from January 1st to October 25th, 2019.

The data set for results presented in Figure 2 and Figure 3 in the paper - Sheet "Demographics"

On the website, users searching for projects were firstly asked to specify their expectations of projects. These expectations encompass the benefits of volunteering by asking whether the project includes social interaction, whether particular skills are required or can be developed, and whether physical activity is involved. The barriers to participation are incorporated by asking whether the project is suitable for families, and whether organised transport is provided. Users were asked to rate the importance of the five project expectations on a Likert scale of 1 to 5 (Not at all = 1, Not really = 2, Neutral = 3, It

In 2023/24, approximately 54 percent of people in England advised that they had volunteered at least once in the previous year, with 33 percent volunteering at least once a month. In general, the share of people saying they volunteered has been declining since 2013/14, when approximately 70 percent of the population volunteered in a year.

This dataset reports statistics on volunteers in the Kansas City metro area. The data is from the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This infographic describes results on volunteering from the 2013 General Social Survey (GSS) on Giving, Volunteering and Participating. The survey was undertaken to better understand how Canadians support individuals and communities on their own or through their involvement with charitable and non-profit organizations.

The MEAE presents data on international volunteers each year. This information makes it possible to better understand the profiles, routes and destinations of volunteers who go abroad under the schemes supported directly or indirectly by the Ministry. These statistics are also useful to better guide and accompany them before, during and after their mission and to reach new audiences. The full pdf file is available on France Diplomatie: https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/politique-etrangere-de-la-france/societe-civile-et-volontariat/volontariats

The Current Population Survey Civic Engagement and Volunteering (CEV) Supplement is the most robust longitudinal survey about volunteerism and other forms of civic engagement in the United States. Produced by AmeriCorps in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, the CEV takes the pulse of our nation’s civic health every two years. The data on this page was collected in September 2017. The CEV can generate reliable estimates at the national level, within states and the District of Columbia, and in the largest twelve Metropolitan Statistical Areas to support evidence-based decision making and efforts to understand how people make a difference in communities across the country. This page was updated on January 16, 2025 to ensure consistency across all waves of CEV data. Click on "Export" to download and review an excerpt from the 2017 CEV Analytic Codebook that shows the variables available in the analytic CEV datasets produced by AmeriCorps. Click on "Show More" to download and review the following 2017 CEV data and resources provided as attachments: 1) CEV FAQs – answers to frequently asked technical questions about the CEV 2) Constructs and measures in the CEV 3) 2017 CEV Analytic Data and Setup Files – analytic dataset in Stata (.dta), R (.rdata), SPSS (.sav), and Excel (.csv) formats, codebook for analytic dataset, and Stata code (.do) to convert raw dataset to analytic formatting produced by AmeriCorps. 4) 2017 CEV Technical Documentation – codebook for raw dataset and full supplement documentation produced by U.S. Census Bureau 5) 2017 CEV Raw Data and Read In Files – raw dataset in Stata (.dta) format, Stata code (.do) and dictionary file (.dct) to read ASCII dataset (.dat) into Stata using layout files (.lis)

In 2022, the share of people volunteering in an association in France was higher among people aged 65 to 79. Indeed, nearly one-third (32 percent) of French people aged 70-74 volunteered in an association, as did 27 percent of 75-79 year olds, and 24 percent of 65-69 year olds. In contrast, only 14 percent of those aged 45-49 volunteered in an association. Between 2010 and 2022, with the exception of 2019, the proportion of men volunteering in an association in France was higher than that of women.

Cultural volunteer statistical data from the Ministry of Culture survey.

Increase the number of service hours provided in the Corporation for National and Community Services Volunteer Programs (CNCS) from 1,654,783 in 2014 to 2,150,434 by 2017.

Captures the number of people actively volunteering at Adelaide City Council and the number of hours worked.

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of Volunteering Untapped Inc.

This statistic illustrates the participation rate for regular and occasional volunteer work in France in 2017, by age group. The rate went from ** percent among those surveyed aged under 25 years to ** percent among those aged 55 to 74 years.