Youth Volunteer Rates Up in 2008

The National Conference on Citizenship has released a new report assessing volunteer rates across the nation in 2008. Here's what they report on Millennials:

About 8.24 million young people ages 16-24 volunteered in 2008, over 441,000 more than in 2007. This increase in young adult volunteers makes up almost half of the overall increase in the number of volunteers nationally. The volunteer rate for this group increased significantly from 20.8 percent in 2007 to 21.9 percent in 2008. The interest among young people in volunteering coincides with their reported increase in the belief that it is essential or very important to help other people in need. The Higher Education Research Institute studies the attitudes of first-year college students each year and reported that in 2008, 69.7 percent of students held this belief in 2008—the highest rate since 1970.

Overall, the report finds good new across the board for the civic health of the country, at least as it is measured by volunteer rates. Here are the other key findings of the report:

• 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.
• 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.

There is also some regional and even municipal-specific data on volunteer rates in the report. It's only 6 pages long and worth checking out.