Volunteering in America's Cities

Do you live in a city with a vibrant volunteer community? What factors most influence high rates of area volunteerism? A new federal report on volunteering in America's largest metropolitan areas helps answer these questions.

According to the Corporation for National and Community Service's first-ever detailed report on volunteering habits and trends at the city level, the cities with the highest levels of volunteering are largely focused in Middle America. The report also reveals that high home ownership rates and educational levels equate to higher volunteer rates, while long commuting times and high volunteer dropout rates have the opposite effect.

Volunteer rates in America's largest cities range from a high of 40.5% in Minneapolis-St. Paul to a low of 14.4% in Las Vegas. After Minneapolis-St. Paul, the cities with the highest volunteer rates are Salt Lake City; Austin, Texas; Omaha, Neb.; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee, Wis.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Tulsa, Okla. The cities with the lowest volunteer rates are Las Vegas; Miami; New York; Virginia Beach, Va.; and Riverside, Calif.

Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings is based on data obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Volunteering isn't just nice, it's necessary for tackling our toughest problems," said Corporation CEO David Eisner. "Cities with high volunteer rates are cities that have lower crime, higher employment, better education, and a better quality of life. City leaders should use this report as a roadmap to increasing volunteering and citizen problem-solving in their cities."

The report analyzed the factors driving volunteer rates in major metropolitan areas and found four key social and demographic trends: community attachment; commuting times; high school graduation levels and poverty; and the prevalence of nonprofits and their capacity to retain volunteers from year to year.

The study found that communities in which residents have high levels of attachment as measured by indicators such as home ownership are likely to have higher volunteering rates. For example, Minneapolis-St. Paul has the highest home ownership rate of all the cities included in the report. People who own homes in a community are more likely to have a vested personal interest in the quality of life in the area, and are therefore more likely to participate in service.

The study also points out that long commutes to work can drive down an area's volunteering rate not only by limiting the time an individual has available for volunteering, but also by decreasing the time people have to interact with others at their workplace, house of worship, club, or other social network. People are more likely to volunteer when they have more social interaction because there is a greater chance that they will be personally asked to volunteer by someone they know.

Volunteer rates increase as education levels increase, and are generally lower in high poverty areas. The report identifies that if the average high school graduation rate for the major metropolitan areas was raised by 4 percentage points from 83% to 87%, we could expect to see a subsequent rise in the volunteering rate of 4.1 percentage points.

The report also finds that the capacity of a community's nonprofit organizations expands or limits volunteering opportunities. Communities with fewer nonprofit organizations per capita have limited capability to recruit, place, and manage prospective volunteers. The ability of these organizations to retain volunteers is also integral, as high volunteer turnover rates are likely to negatively impact overall volunteering rates.

Based on the findings in the report, the Corporation recommends several action steps for city and nonprofit leaders who want to increase the level of service and civic participation in their hometowns:

• Popularize flexible work schedules, employee volunteering, and virtual volunteering in order to diminish the effect of commuting times.
• Encourage leaders of nonprofit and community organizations to value volunteering as an essential aspect of solving community problems by providing resources to facilitate greater participation.
• Start young people on a pathway to life-long engagement at an early age by working with schools and nonprofit groups to spur community engagement through activities such as service-learning.
• Encourage nonprofits to reinvent and expand the roles that volunteers play in organizations in order to attract more people to service and boost volunteer retention.

To help community leaders put these recommendations in action, the Corporation has put together a set of free online resources about workplace volunteering, building community connections, and online volunteering. The material includes tip sheets, effective practices, and online training resources.