Volunteers came back to nonprofits in 2023, after the pandemic tanked participation

From foster grandparents who volunteer at an early child care center to citizen scientists who collect water quality data in remote locations, nonprofit volunteers have come back after the pandemic.

A new survey released Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps shows 28.3% or 75.8 million people in the U.S. volunteered with a nonprofit between Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2023. That is a rebound since COVID-19 public health shutdowns tanked participation by almost 7 percentage points to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to pre-pandemic rates of volunteerism.

The drop in volunteer participation was a wake up call for nonprofits, said AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith, and a real test of whether volunteers, whose habits and routines were disrupted, would return.

“The fact that we went from a point in this country where we were telling people, ‘Don’t come, our doors are closed,' — The fact that that did not lead to a flatline or lead to a gradual increase, but to see more than 5% jump is pretty impressive," said Smith.

The survey on volunteering and civic life, conducted by the U.S. Census every two years, asks respondents if they volunteered at a nonprofit. It also asks if they informally helped friends, family or neighbors or gave to charity.

The free labor volunteers provide to nonprofits fuels a huge range of services across every kind of community in the U.S., with the survey estimating the value of a volunteer hour at $33.49, far more than the minimum wage in any state or major U.S. city.

At the Alpine Watershed Group, like many nonprofits, they describe volunteers as “foundational” to their work. Executive director Kimra McAfee said her organization has monitored the river and waters of California’s Alpine County for more than 20 years. Four times a year, volunteers go out to their sites to collect water quality samples, sometimes cross country skiing to get there, she said.

The survey also reveals differences in volunteer participation between states, with a handful like Utah and Vermont at the top with more than 40% participation and a couple of states like Rhode Island and Nevada dropping below 20% participation at the bottom.

Smith said states that top the list often have better institutional supports for nonprofits and volunteers, including paid time off.

The nonprofit After-School All-Stars Las Vegas has volunteers visit students to talk about their career paths or businesses, said executive director Jodi Manzella. Because her nonprofit works out of schools, they weren't able to invite volunteers to fully return until the last school year.

“I don’t see us falling at the bottom, but we are a booming state and a transitional state,” she said of Nevada with many people moving in and out especially of the Las Vegas area.

Compared to other adults, people between the ages of 45 and 54 volunteered at the highest rates overall, the survey found, and more women volunteered than men, continuing a long-term trend. People with higher incomes reported volunteering with a nonprofit at higher rates than people with lower incomes. Many more people, or 54.3% of people in the U.S., help out informally, which could include anything from babysitting for a family member to lending a tool to a neighbor.

A little more than half of the 15,000 volunteers at Crisis Text Line in 2023 were 18 to 25 years old, said CEO Dena Trujillo. Overall, the survey found 22.6% of a similar age group reported volunteering for a nonprofit.

Crisis Text Line acts like “mental health emergency room,” Trujillo said, with volunteers responding to people in crisis by text 24 hours a day. Volunteers go through 15 hours of training and then work under the supervision of mental health clinicians. People of all ages text the service looking for help with anxiety, depression and relationships, though the majority are 24 years of age or younger, she said.

Trujillo said besides finding purpose in immediately helping people who are in crisis, volunteers report that they feel more equipped to support their family and friends and to deescalate and manage situations in their own lives after completing the training.

“When I look at young people, quite frankly, I think the issue is that the volunteering has to match what is relevant to that young person’s life,” she said, with many seeing mental health and well-being as urgent issues.

The ability to text from their homes and at hours convenient for them makes volunteering accessible to a broad range of people, Trujillo said.

For the first time this year, the volunteerism survey asked people to report if their volunteering took place at least in part virtually and 18% of volunteers said it had. While it’s not possible to compare to previous years yet, Smith sees the embrace of virtual volunteering as a way to make more volunteer opportunities available to more people.

Another strategy organizations can use to find more volunteers is to draw from the communities they serve. The Federal Hill House in Providence, Rhode Island, runs early childcare programs, a senior center and a large food pantry. Executive Director Kimberly Fernandez said often the older people who help take care of babies in the morning will stay for lunch and an exercise class in the afternoon.

“Part of the volunteering that happens here is also part of the programming, right? So we don’t try to divide: ‘You are the service recipient and you’re the volunteer service provider,’” she said.

Many nonprofits are run exclusively by volunteers to respond to needs in their communities. The Lincoln Bike Kitchen in Nebraska repairs used bikes bikes and gives them away. Shari Weiss Shanks recently became the nonprofit's first executive director and said all kinds of people use the bikes to commute to work or school, filling a need for transportation and independence.

While they certainly love getting volunteers who have mechanical skills, she said there are a lot of different roles people can play depending on their interests.

“The one thing I would say about about volunteering is if you are angry or you aren’t finding a purpose or a cause, go volunteer for a nonprofit," she said. "It will change your life.”

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