Nonprofits have struggled for years to understand—and ideally reverse—the declining numbers of everyday donors and volunteers who engage with their organizations. Our colleagues at the Generosity Commission, the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and others have long documented the phenomena of decreasing volunteerism and giving.
So, in preparing the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy’s 11 Trends in Philanthropy report, we asked: What about today’s volunteering landscape is working? What forms of volunteering are actually on the rise? What can nonprofits learn from existing research—and peer organizations—to turn this narrative around? In this article, I’ll explore what recently released data can tell us about how volunteers are showing up for their communities.
Volunteer rates are back up but volunteer hours are not
According to AmeriCorps, the percentage of Americans aged 16 and up who volunteered with an organization dropped from 30% in 2019 to 23.2% in 2021. But according to new data released in December 2024, that number climbed back up to 28.3% in 2023.
The real decline is in the total number of hours those volunteers contributed. In 2009, Americans gave 8.1 billion hours of volunteer time, but that number declined to 6.9 billion hours in 2017 and 4.1 billion hours in 2021, before recovering slightly to 4.99 billion hours in 2023.
All of which is to say, it doesn’t appear that Americans have lost interest in volunteering—indeed, millions of people are already helping out in their communities. To reach millions more, however, nonprofits will need to try something new.
Virtual volunteering is on the rise
AmeriCorps measured virtual volunteering for the first time in 2023 and found that 18.1% of volunteers reported partially or entirely virtual participation between September 2022 and September 2023. The 25-44 age group led this shift, with 34% engaging in some form of online volunteering. But this isn’t just a trend among younger people—16% of those aged 60-69 also reported virtual participation.
While some organizations like food banks may struggle to offer online opportunities, others—such as literacy programs that deliver tutoring sessions over Zoom, or advocacy networks that leverage volunteers to facilitate or monitor group forums—are finding new ways to involve virtual volunteers.
Sometimes, it’s the social media user who initiates the effort. Everyday users and influencers are hosting “TikTok-a-thons” on behalf of favorite causes and spending a few extra moments watching videos to support friends and strangers alike.
One-off experiences can boost volunteerism
A 2021 research paper found that volunteers had become “more interested in episodic, short-term assignments.” Such one-off volunteering experiences can include:
Collective giving: A 2024 report from the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, Colmena Consulting, and Philanthropy Together lists “Live Crowdfunding Experiences” among the seven most popular forms of collective giving today. These experiences “are typically formed as one-off events that bring together large groups of people for in-the-moment giving,” and “[p]articipants are not expected to come together as a giving group again.” Volunteers can also serve as event initiators and organizers, facilitators of small-group conversations, photographers, or live social media chroniclers.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is the only federally recognized National Day of Service. This year, for example, the Michigan Community Service Commission alone organized 19 events engaging over 5,000 volunteers. Individual nonprofits as well as networks can organize their own unique Day of Service programs to engage a large number of volunteers in a short time (as my own colleagues at the Johnson Center found) to volunteer again.
Raising awareness, mobilizing support
When it comes to the “5Ts” of philanthropy, our sector has traditionally focused largely on time and treasure. However, talent, testimony, and ties may be increasingly important at a time when it is vital for the public to understand how funding and programmatic shifts at the federal level are impacting nonprofits. We may not be used to quantifying actions such as forwarding an email or reposting a nonprofit’s message on social media as “formal” volunteering, but they can help raise awareness and mobilize support.
So, what can nonprofits do to leverage these growing opportunities to increase volunteerism—by tapping into new energy, new networks, and new ways of making an impact? Start by gathering staff, board members, donors, and program participants to reimagine how volunteers fit into your mission. Experiment with new engagement formats, and don’t worry about whether or not you get it right the first time. Volunteers of all ages want to be part of meaningfully helping organizations and causes they care about—and testing out new strategies for making a difference is a meaningful contribution in itself.
Photo credit: Courtesy of Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy
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