The Real Reason 75% of Americans Don’t Volunteer
Our country takes great pride in the role volunteering has played in our history. We believe that volunteers are virtuous, kind and essential to the health of our society. It is why the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, for instance, is celebrated as a national Day of Service. We are a country that loves volunteering.
We are also a country where three out of four people don’t do it.
According to the Corporation for National & Community Service 62.6 million Americans volunteered in 2013. That is about 25% of the adult population, and if you happen to be keeping score, the lowest rate in a decade. Yes, you can view this as a glass 1/4 full. But given how important volunteering is, I’m not alone in thinking, “We can do better.”
Click here to read Greg’s full article about why the majority of Americans don’t volunteer. It will probably surprise you. It will definitely inspire you.
Related Posts
-
The Week in Volunteering: 8 Stories to Show Your Nonprofit Some Love
-
Food for Thought: Technology and the Future of Volunteer Management
-
Case Studies in Volunteer Recruiting: OnceUponaSchool.org Shows How Good Design and Storytelling Can Fuel Engagement
-
The Week in Volunteering: 8 Links to Warm Your Organization’s Heart
About The Author
Greg Baldwin
Greg Baldwin is the President of VolunteerMatch — the Web's largest volunteer engagement network. Greg joined the founding team in 1998 as its Chief Imagination Officer. Today, Greg oversees the expansion of a network that is already serving 100,000+ nonprofits, 150+ enterprise clients, and a quarter of a million interested volunteers a week.
Getting a volunteer position these days is just as hard as landing a six figure job. I send my resume into a giant black hole and don’t hear another word. Quite frankly, I don’t need to work for free just to be treated like garbage.
Volunteering can be both personally rewarding and draining at the same time — much of the work is unappreciated and dealing with office politics when you are donating precious time to an organization is offputting.
I am a wife, mother of two, I work full time and go to school full time. I still find the time to volunteer once or twice a month – because I want to volunteer.
I have done many of my volunteer projects through Volunteer Match. I even have my kids volunteering from time to time.
The bottom line is…you make time for what you want to do.
I’m poor and yet I volunteer. Well, volunteering helps make me feel like I’m not that poor. Yes, I don’t work full-time & I don’t study and that’s why I’m able to volunteer. I admit, volunteering is way easier than being a caregiver, which is if you ask me is volunteering, even if it’s helping family. As someone who’s in their 20th year volunteering, I’d say that there should be some sort of compensation for the volunteer, even if it’s crackers!, LOL(laugh out loud). For example, I lived on the south side and the volunteer location was on the north side. I feel I should have been given a bus pass credit of some sort. Now, I refuse to volunteer outside walking distance from my home, which 20 years later there is now two community organizations at my neighborhood. I volunteer at both of these places. It’s my dream to go to school and/or work full-time.
This article is ridiculous. In the first place, people don’t volunteer because they don’t have the time or energy when they are working 50-60 hour weeks and then tending a family and a household the rest of the time.
Next many volunteer opportunities require a regular commitmment of scheduled time preferably during the same hours that people are working. I might want to read to the kids at school, but my job prevents that particular opportunity.
Third, most volunteer opportunities you see are for fundraising which is really not the kind of thing many people want to do. We want to help people directly, not raise money for charities which siphon off most of it for operating expenses. Advertise a chance to help build a park and see how many people show up. That is much more satisfying than yet another walk/run for (fill in the blank).
Yet another reason why people don’t volunteer is that they are not aware of the volunteeer opportunites out there. You help with this, but most people I know are not even aware that you exist.
Sadly another reason why people don’t volunteer is our society has destroyed the idea that community is important; we are a far more of an “I got mine, I don’t care about you.” society than when I was young. Because we have been playing the politics of division for so many years, all too many people no longer consider that the people not like them deserve help. So many will volunteer for the Cancer society if a loved one has cancer but otherwise, who cares. The demonization of the poor is reducing the volunteers to help in food banks, homeless shelters, etc.
This article seems to indicate that what you need is to make volunteering more corporate when what you really need is to make it less corporate. I get plenty of corporate in my day job, thank you very much.
Great points! especially the one about people not really even knowing about them!
JJ Thanks. It is true that people’s busy lives can get in the way of volunteering and it is easy to be disenchanted with the world we live in. What keeps me hopeful is that despite all the reasons not to give back we see a growing community of people who are looking to make a difference. But that is not enough without more opportunities, that is why we continue to work to expand and strengthen the network of causes investing in effective volunteer engagement.
I have been volunteering over ten years now
And before that I worked for over 20 yrs.
I really like what I do now, I have three , and sometimes four different volunteering jobs.
And most people are surprised that Iam,
And most of it is regular.
I enjoy doing things for people, and animals.
I look forward to your response.
REE Petrus