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For the past two years, the Corporation for National and Community Service has reported on state-by-state volunteer trends, allowing all 50 states to better understand who is serving in their communities and how, when, and why they serve. Following the release of our second annual state volunteering report in April 2007, the Corporation continues to deliver increasingly detailed reports on the trends and habits in volunteering across the country.
Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings takes us to the next level, highlighting the diversity of volunteering habits and trends in America’s largest cities. This report can help local leaders from the government, nonprofit, and private sectors develop volunteer growth strategies unique to their cities—together building a stronger America.
While the city-by-city information is fascinating, this report reinforces one of the findings highlighted in previous reports. Although volunteering in America remains at historically high levels, the number of adults who volunteer has dipped recently—primarily because more than one-third of volunteers in 2005 dropped from the ranks in 2006. Our failure to retain more volunteers from one year to the next is cause for concern and should serve as a wake-up call to all those individuals, groups, and organizations that care deeply about addressing the nation’s most pressing needs through volunteering.
Indeed, we at the Corporation believe volunteering is not just a nice thing to do, but a necessary part of solving social ills that have the greatest impact on our most vulnerable populations: the 37 million people who live in poverty, the 3.5 million people who are homeless, the 15 million children and youth in desperate need of a mentor or caring adult in their life, the tens of millions of students nationwide who struggle each day to improve academically, and the countless communities preparing for, responding to, and rebuilding after disasters. The volunteer rate of a community also is an important indicator of its well-being and quality of life. That is why our agency is working with nonprofits across the country to increase the number of American adult volunteers to 75 million by the year 2010. If we succeed in reaching these numbers and deepening each community’s commitment to engaging citizens in solving our most pressing challenges, there’s no telling what America can achieve in the years ahead.
In Service,
David Eisner, Chief Executive Officer
Corporation for National and Community Service
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