Volunteering Is In Vogue

The Corporation for National and Community Service has published a report, Volunteering in America 2010, that examines how much, where, and which Americans volunteered in 2009. By their estimates, 63.4 million Americans volunteered for a total of 8.1 billion hours. Unlike the dip in donations charities experienced last year, volunteering increased by 1.6 million people. They approximate that the dollar value of all this donated time is around $169 billion.

The report’s interactive website allows you to download the data. Seeing as we just released our 2010 Metro Market Study (that looks at the financial health of various philanthropic marketplaces around the country), I decided to see how these same cities compare in terms of volunteers. Here’s what I found in taking a closer look at 27 cities (Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis-St Paul, Nashville, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, Washington, DC):

• Not surprisingly, large cities have more volunteers. NYC had the most number of volunteers from 2004 to 2009.
  
• From 2004-2005 and in 2008, Nashville had the least number of volunteers. In 2006-2007 Orlando had the least and in 2009 Milwaukee had the least.
  
• NYC had an average of 2.39 million volunteers from 2007-2009, while Nashville had an average of 144,000.
  
• The average volunteer rate from 2007-2009 was the highest in Minneapolis-St. Paul (37.4%) and the lowest in Miami (14.8%).
  
• Portland (48.2) reported the highest average volunteer hours per resident for 2007-2009. Miami reported the lowest (20).

For more information about volunteering, check out our Guide.