Research FAQs
Purpose
What is the purpose of the Volunteering in American.gov Web site and why is it important?
This site is a road map of the current and potential opportunities for expanding volunteering and volunteer service at a number of geographic levels: national, regional, state, and city. Examples of topical research include:
- long-distance volunteering
- time-use habits of volunteers
- community factors that impact volunteer rates
Now local governments, community service leaders, and service organizations can use this research and tools found within the Web site to develop growth strategies for expanding recruitment and mobilizing a greater number of volunteers to overcome some of our nation’s most pressing challenges.
The information in this Web site can also strategically guide enhancement of the volunteer experience, identify appropriate goals for recruitment, and build a more supportive nonprofit infrastructure for service. In these ways, VolunteeringinAmerica.gov ultimately supports the Corporation’s mission of improving lives, strengthening communities, and fostering civic engagement across America.
About the Web Site Data
Where does the data come from?
Data is collected on a number of items, including:
- volunteers who served through or with an organization;
- frequency and intensity of volunteering;
- types of organizations where individuals volunteer; and
- activities performed by volunteers at the national, regional, and state levels.
The data used in the Web site was collected through a supplement to the September 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 Current Population Surveys (CPS). The CPS is a monthly survey of about 60,000 households (approximately 100,000 adults) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The survey obtains information on employment and unemployment for the nation’s civilian non-institutionalized population, ages 16 and older. The purpose of the September supplement is to report information on the incidence of volunteering, the characteristics of volunteers, and other aspects of civic life in the United States.
Volunteers are defined as persons who perform unpaid volunteer activities. The count of volunteers includes only persons who volunteered through or for an organization; the figures do not include persons who volunteered in a more informal manner.
National Service data, which is specific to the programs administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service, come from both the Corporation and its partners in the field.
How are the rankings calculated?
The Volunteering in America Web site includes rankings of America’s states, large MSAs or cities, and mid-size MSAs or cities.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) designates an area as a Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) if the area has at least one urbanized area of 50,000 or more in population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the urban core as measured by commuting ties.
As single-year estimates for segments of the population may sometimes be unreliable, the rankings results in this report are based on multiple years. For example, states and large-size city rankings are based on three years’ of data— three-year averages that combine responses from the 2005, 2006, and 2007 volunteering supplements to the CPS, unless otherwise noted. Mid-size city rankings are based on four years’ of data— four-year averages that combine responses from the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 volunteering supplements to the CPS, unless otherwise noted— as mid-size cities tend to have a smaller sample size in a single year. Using multiple years’ worth of data increases the reliability of the estimates; however, some differences between states and cities may not be statistically significant.
About Volunteering Rates
What leads to differences in volunteer rates?
While we cannot conclusively determine that any single factor directly influences the level of volunteering in a community, we have identified some key themes which play an important role in America’s volunteering rates or habits.
Community Attachment: By examining aspects of community attachment such as home ownership rates we have identified increased levels of investment in a community as an important predictor of higher levels of volunteering.
Average Commuting Time: Long commutes can curtail volunteering in a community by decreasing the amount of time residents have for non-work related activities, as well as the time for creating the social connections that lead to volunteering.
Education Levels and Poverty Rates: Analysis of a rise of four percentage points in a city’s high school graduation rates could be expected to raise the city’s average volunteer rate by 4.1 percentage points. While high poverty is linked to low volunteering, it is unclear as to which causes the other.
Nonprofit Infrastructure of a Community: We have seen that cities with more nonprofit organizations, especially small nonprofits, tend to have higher volunteer rates.
All of these factors can play a role in influencing the volunteer rate in a community and each city has its own unique blend of strengths and challenges.
What can a city do to increase its volunteer rate?
This Web site provides evidence that volunteering habits are strongly connected to the particular characteristics of a given community. In order to make a big difference, over-arching changes may need to be made to the community as a whole. However, there are some practical steps we can take to move closer to the goal of engaging all Americans in serving their communities. Some of those steps are identified as the following:
Encourage leaders in communities to consider strategies for elevating the issue of volunteering in their policies and communications. Volunteering is already playing a large role in solving problems and raising the quality of life in cities and states across the country, but there is a long way to go before the majority of communities are benefitting from the full potential of volunteering in their areas.
Work with employers to popularize flexible work schedules in order to diminish the effect of long commuting times on volunteering. Also, spread the word about pro bono volunteering and skills-based volunteering—they are no longer just for legal professionals. They can be excellent training experiences as well as opportunities for real partnerships in the community leading to natural, positive public relations.
Work with schools and other groups to spur greater community engagement among youth through activities such as service-learning in order to start young people on a pathway to life-long engagement and to draw parents into service as well.
Encourage nonprofits to reinvent and expand the roles that volunteers play in an organization in order to attract more people to service and boost volunteer retention.
Long-Distance Volunteering
Why did the Corporation study long-distance volunteering?
It is important that leaders recognize the potential to attract and utilize long-distance volunteers serving in their state and pave the way for their successful integration into disaster recovery and other volunteer projects.
In many states, volunteers who come to serve from far away can make a crucial difference in a time of need. This brief indicates the degree to which states are currently supported by out-of-state residents so that they might better accommodate them.
For instance, research reveals that a quarter of the total volunteers in Mississippi in 2007 and a fifth of the volunteers in Louisiana were from out-of-state and traveled 120 miles or further to serve.
This report is the first look at the landscape on a national level of these volunteers. We hope it provides a springboard for continued discussion on the topic.
Where does the data in the “Long-Distance Volunteering in the United States” brief come from?
Of the data used in the brief was collected through the September 2007 Current Population Survey Supplement (CPS) on Volunteering. In 2007, the CPS Supplement on Volunteering added a series of questions asking adults whether they volunteer a considerable distance away from their home. Because the number of positive responses is fairly low, we are unable to report on a full state-by-state basis. We are unable to report all statistics on long-distance volunteering for all states.
Time-Use Habits of Volunteers
Why is “How Do Volunteers Find the Time?: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS)” important to the field of volunteering and service?
For too long a misconception has existed that volunteers have more time than others to give to service. National volunteering statistics have consistently reported that Americans who work are more likely to volunteer than Americans who do not work. Additionally, adults with children volunteer at a higher rate than adults who do not have children.
Based on these earlier findings, we determined that a deeper discussion of the way volunteers spend their time could be useful to the field. In comparing the time-use habits of volunteers, non-volunteers, and former volunteers, we were able to determine some interesting differences. We hope the findings from the ATUS survey report are helpful for recruitment strategizing and messaging for our partners who use volunteers in their organizations across the country.
How was the data in the time-use brief collected?
The American Time Use Survey (ATUS) is sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. All ATUS respondents are selected from households which have completed eight monthly Current Population Survey (CPS) segments. The sample of households is stratified so that people raising children and households headed by a person from a racial minority group are adequately represented. One randomly selected adult is selected from each household to complete the time-use diary for a given day.
ATUS respondents were interviewed only once and reported their activities for the 24-hour period from 4 a.m. on the day before the interview until 4 a.m. on the day of the interview—their “diary day.” If respondents reported doing more than one activity at a time, they were asked to identify which activity was primary. Activities were then grouped into twelve main categories and seventeen subcategories for analysis.
To ensure that weekday and weekend time use data are equally represented, the diary day has a 50 percent chance of being each weekday (equal chance of M-F), a 25 percent chance of being Saturday, and a 25 percent chance of being Sunday. Time diary data are collected on a rolling basis throughout the year. When the year’s data collection is complete, the results are reweighted to account for non-response and sample stratification. As a result, national ATUS statistics can be interpreted as the average time spent by adults on each activity in a typical day.
About a third of respondents could be identified as having come from households whose members had also taken the CPS supplement on volunteering. This allows researchers to identify volunteers and non-volunteers who completed ATUS diaries between 2003 and 2006. The results presented in the brief are based on about 3,500 time diaries completed by ATUS respondents who reported that they were volunteers, and almost 5,300 diaries completed by non-volunteers, creating a total sample for this study of about 8,880. There is a time lag of between six and ten months between the Current Population Survey’s volunteer survey and the American Time Use Survey.
Additional Research
What other research has the Corporation for National and Community Service produced and where can I find it?
Each year, the Office of Research and Policy Development produces an overview of volunteering at the national, regional, state, and city level. In 2007, we released a report including city-level data for the first time. This year, we have expanded our data bank from 50 cities to 162.cities.
Current data is available on the VolunteeringInAmerica.gov Web site, and previous years’ data is available at http://www.cns.gov/about/role_impact/performance_research.asp. At this Web site, more Corporation research is available. Topics include the following:
- Health benefits of volunteering
- Volunteering and civic engagement among youth from disadvantaged circumstances
- Keeping Baby Boomers volunteering
- Volunteer growth since 1974
- Volunteering among college students
- Mentoring
- AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and Learn and Serve America.