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Four in five charities registered with the IRS—an estimated 174,000 organizations—use volunteers. And that number doesn’t include the nearly 400,000 small charities in the United Sates, virtually all of which are run entirely by volunteers. In addition, an estimated 83 percent of the nation's 380,000 congregations have social service community development or neighborhood organizing projects.
Organizations value their volunteers for these important reasons:
- They are instrumental in reducing costs
- They improve the quality of services provided
- They raise awareness of the organization in the community.
However, volunteers will not continue to serve at an organization if they are not effectively managed. Indeed, recent studies show a disturbingly high level of volunteer turnover, making retention and an investment in effective management techniques that much more critical.
The following resources should help nonprofits and congregations more effectively manage and use their volunteers.
Keeping Baby Boomers Volunteering:
A Research Brief on Volunteer Retentionand Turnover
Baby Boomers today have the highest volunteer rate of any age group. They also, as this report notes, volunteer at higher rates than past generations did when they were the same age. While much attention has focused on how to recruit Baby Boomers into the ranks of volunteers, relatively little attention has been paid to ensuring that those who choose to volunteer one year continue to do so the next. Because three out of every ten Boomer volunteers choose not to volunteer in the following year, a key aspect of keeping Boomer volunteer rates high is to learn how to retain existing Boomer volunteers.
To better understand this dynamic, the Corporation for National and Community Service looked at data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics from 2002-2006. The data trace the volunteer habits of the same sample of Baby Boomers over two consecutive years, as well as a similar sample of pre-Boomers. This is the first time that these data sets have been analyzed. Though much work remains to be done, the hope is that the findings contained herein will help nonprofits and others gain greater insight into the volunteer preferences of Baby Boomers so that turnover can be kept to a minimum and the greatest number of Boomers will remain engaged in their communities in their later years.
Volunteer Management Capacity Study, 2003
To gain an understanding of the current state of volunteer management in charities and congregations with social service outreach activities, the Corporation, the UPS Foundation, and the USA Freedom Corps embarked on the first national study of volunteer management capacity. The study, conducted in the fall of 2003 by the Urban Institute, was designed to assess the capacity of the nonprofit sector to engage volunteers in a way that provides the greatest possible impact and to provide meaningful volunteer opportunities. The study resulted in a series of briefs that explore various issues around volunteer management and recruitment that can be accessed through the links below. In addition, the study led to the creation of the Volunteer Input website to promote dialogue around ways to improve volunteer management capacity. Data from the study is also available for download.
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