15 Volunteer Statistics Every Nonprofit Needs to Know

Volunteers are the workforce that keeps small community charities to large Non-Governmental Organization and international nonprofit running. Understanding trends in volunteerism is essential to building and improving your organization’s volunteer program. We have compiled a number of important statistics your nonprofit should be aware of as you build out your next program.

Here is a list of volunteer statistics that offers your nonprofit insight into the trends and motivations behind volunteerism.

1. 85% of volunteers donate to the nonprofits that they volunteer for (Global Trends in Giving Report).
2. The estimated value of a volunteer work hour is $25.43 USD (Independent Sector).
3. An estimated 25.1 percent of US adults volunteered in 2017, contributing an estimated 8.8 billion hours.( National Center For Charitable Statistics) 
4. On average, people spend an average of 52 hours per year volunteering their time. (Nonprofit Source) 
5. 67% of people found volunteer opportunities online in 2014 vs 34% in 2006.
6. 74% of nonprofits report that constituents' desire to participate in their organization's work has increased over the last five years (Salesforce.org) 
7. 72% of volunteers serve only one organization or cause.( Bureau Of Labour Statistics) 
8. 77 percent of nonprofits say they believe that skilled volunteers could significantly improve their organization’s business practices (2017 Deloitte Impact Survey)
9. 75% of working millennials surveyed said they would volunteer more if they had a better understanding of the impact they were making (2017 Deloitte Impact Survey)
10. Women volunteer 6% more than men.  (Bureau Of Labour Statistics) 
11. 45% of nonprofits don’t measure volunteer impact, of that group 34% attributed the failure to a lack of resources and tools  (Software Advice Volunteer Impact Report ) 
12. The top four national volunteer activities in the USA are food collection or distribution (24.2%), fundraising or selling items to raise money (23.9%), general labor or transportation (18.8%), and tutoring or teaching (17.9%).(Nonprofit Source)
13. 2% of the survey respondents say employees want the opportunity to volunteer with peers in a corporate-supported event.(Nonprofit Source)
14. 35% of respondents said one of the reasons they volunteer is to socialize.(Sterling Volunteers) 
15. One report says that people who volunteer over 100 hours a year are some of the healthiest people in the U.S.( National Community Service) 

Understanding volunteer facts offers your nonprofit a clear idea of the motivation, values, and needs of volunteers today, allowing you to improve your volunteer management process. Now that you are armed with all those interesting statistics it time to start reflecting on how you can harness that information to help your nonprofit achieve its mission and goals. 

Volunteer retention is a top priority for most nonprofit organizations, which is why we have created  A Technical Guide To Retaining Volunteers to help. Click the button below to download the guide for free.