A new report set to be released by Volunteering in America on Monday, July 28, takes a detailed look at the state of volunteerism in America. Apparently, there's more at work when it comes to charity work than just the goodness in your heart. In fact, it may be influenced by where you live, how old you are and how our economy is doing.
The study lists U.S. cities inhabited by people who give the most -- and the least -- of their time to volunteering. The top city? Minneapolis-St. Paul. Dead last? Miami, which knocked off Las Vegas for the bottom spot. Utah, with its heavy Mormon population, was the top volunteer state. Check out report link above for more interesting tidbits on geography and do-gooders.
According to another key finding of the report:
Baby Boomers will double the number of older American volunteers in the coming decades and young people are volunteering at higher rates than the last generation. “We have an unprecedented opportunity to seize this moment and usher in a new era of service in America,” said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation. “By giving us a look under the hood of U.S. volunteering, this research shows what we need to do to recruit and retain tomorrow’s volunteers.”
That's the key sentence here: young people are volunteering at higher rates than the last generation.
Our San Francisco-based affiliate, the New Politics Institute (NPI), has conducted an enormous amount of demographic research on these young people. What do we know about them? They were born in the 1980s and 1990s. They believe that the federal government can do good in the hands of the right people. They are more African American, more Hispanic and more Asian -- they reflect America's real demograhic makeup. And they are very civic minded. In other words, they volunteer.
What are they called? The Millennial Generation. According to a major 2007 report on Millennials by NPI:
Similar to the Boomers, the Millennials are poised to impact the country at every life stage and in myriad ways - but particularly in politics. By 2008, the number of citizen-eligible Millennial voters will be nearing 50 million. By the presidential election of 2016, Millennials will be one third or more of the citizen-eligible electorate, and roughly 30 percent of actual voters—and this is making no assumptions about possible increased turnout rates among Millennials in the future, which could make their weight among actual voters higher. Moreover, from that point on, the Millennials’ share of the actual voters will rise steadily for several decades as more and more of the generation enter middle age.
The Millennials are an unusual generation, not like young people we have seen for a long time. As first noted by generational analysts William Strauss and Neil Howe, they are not individualistic risk-takers like the Boomers or cynical and disengaged like Generation Xers. Signs indicate that Millennials are civic-minded (emphasis added), politically engaged, and hold values long associated with progressives, such as concern about economic inequalities, desire for a more multilateral foreign policy, and a strong belief in government...
Or take volunteerism, which is unusually high among Millennials. The American Freshman survey showed 83 percent of entering freshmen in 2005 volunteered at least occasionally during their high school senior year, the highest ever measured in this survey. And 71 percent said they volunteered on a weekly basis.
Finally, according to an Associated Press report, another factor in volunteerism was the economy:
On the worrisome side were mounting concerns that economic woes — including high gasoline prices and job insecurity — would be deterrents for some would-be volunteers.
"With more people in need — losing houses, losing jobs — there are more people to serve," said CNCS board chairman Stephen Goldsmith. "You have fewer people helping and more people needing help."
For more on the Millennial Generation, check in later this week.
First Lady Michelle Obama is slated Monday to volunteer to help build a school playground in San Francisco and give the keynote address at the conference Monday night. Mrs. Obama and Cabinet secretaries will be volunteering across the country this week to kick off the United We Serve summer service initiative, which runs from Monday to September 11.
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