Volunteering in America Report

Posted by Corporation for National and Community Service on November 20, 2018

The Corporation has released its 2018 report on Volunteering in America, a “comprehensive report of volunteer highlights and trends in the United States of America.” On the report’s website, you can view information on each state and highlighted data from 51 metropolitan areas. Pennsylvania has advanced in its ranking! In 2015, 28% of Pennsylvanians volunteered 338.38 million hours, ranking us 22nd in the nation. As of the latest report, 34.2% of Pennsylvanians volunteered, ranking us 21st in the nation.

A look at the top 20 cities ranked by volunteer rate shows the Pittsburgh Metro area in 7th place with 38.1% and the Philadelphia-Camden-DC area in 17th with 33.5%! PennSERVE: The Governor’s Office of Citizen Service is thankful for all of its programs across the Commonwealth that work in big cities, small towns, and the heartlands that connect us all by giving our friends and neighbors the opportunity to serve our country and each other.

The site, www.nationalservice.gov/serve/via/, has a lot of good information that you could use to inform your work, including graphs that show breakdowns of the types of volunteer organizations people volunteer through and the types of volunteer activities they perform. Share this information with your members, boards, program partners, and elected officials to show them where and how service makes a difference!

In September, the Corporation debuted the new AmeriCorps Recruitment PSA: Be the Greater Good and is currently gearing up to promote it further. Starting this month, they will distribute the PSA to television stations and launch a digital advertising campaign.

Programs can utilize their resources by using tools found in the Be the Greater Good Toolbox. This page has marketing resources including a downloadable version of the Be the Greater Good PSA, digital ads with the option to customize, tips for purchasing digital advertising, sample radio scripts, and sample social media posts.