Volunteer Statistics 2026: Key Facts, Rates, and Geographic Trends

Volunteer statistics at a glance

Volunteer statistics tell a simple story with a complicated structure: participation is broad, but it is distributed unevenly by age, gender, activity type, and place. The dataset below shows how many people volunteered on an average day in 2022, how long they spent volunteering, how volunteer rates shifted over time, and how state and metro area civic participation compares.

Fast facts

• More than 11 million people volunteered in some manner on an average day in 2022 (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Women accounted for about 7 million volunteers, while men accounted for about 4 million (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Volunteer rates fell from 5.8 percent in 2012 to 4.2 percent in 2022 (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Minnesota posted the highest formal volunteering rate in the dataset at 40.3 percent (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV).
• New Mexico posted the lowest formal volunteering rate among the listed states at 20.3 percent (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV).
• Across OECD countries, just under one-quarter of the population formally volunteers at least once a month (OECD 2024 volunteering report).
• Around the world, more than 860 million people volunteer at least once a month (OECD 2024 webinar).

Table of contents

1. What the headline numbers say
2. Volunteer activity by type
3. Volunteer demographics
4. How volunteer rates changed over time
5. State and metro comparisons
6. Global and OECD context
7. How to read these volunteer statistics

What the headline numbers say

The clearest takeaway from the volunteer statistics is scale. On an average day in 2022, more than 11 million people volunteered in some manner (BLS ATUS 2022). That is not a niche behavior limited to a small group of regular participants. It is a large, everyday pattern of civic activity spread across different kinds of work.

The mix matters as much as the total. The same dataset shows that about 7 million volunteers were women and about 4 million were men on an average day in 2022 (BLS ATUS 2022). That split does not just describe who volunteered; it helps frame how volunteering participation is concentrated across the population.

A second broad takeaway is that volunteering is not one activity. The dataset separates administrative and support work, social service and care, meetings and training, performance and cultural activities, and maintenance and cleanup. Those categories show different levels of participation and different time commitments, which makes the averages more useful when you look at them by task.

Big number

4.2 percent is the 2022 volunteer rate for people age 15 and older in the BLS ATUS dataset, down from 5.8 percent in 2012 (BLS ATUS 2022). That decline is one of the most important trend lines in the entire set because it shows a long-run softening in the share of people who volunteer on an average day.

Volunteer activity by type

If you want to understand volunteer statistics, start with activity type. The number of volunteers and the time they spend differ sharply depending on the kind of work they do.

Volunteer activity	People involved on an average day in 2022	Average hours per day
Administrative and support activities	4,712,000 (BLS ATUS 2022)	1.56 (BLS ATUS 2022)
Social service and care	3,187,000 (BLS ATUS 2022)	2.23 (BLS ATUS 2022)
Meetings, conferences, and training	2,038,000 (BLS ATUS 2022)	2.15 (BLS ATUS 2022)
Performance and cultural activities	721,000 (BLS ATUS 2022)	2.40 (BLS ATUS 2022)
Indoor and outdoor maintenance, building, and cleanup	470,000 (BLS ATUS 2022)	2.07 (BLS ATUS 2022)

A few patterns stand out immediately.

• Administrative and support work had the most participants at 4,712,000 people on an average day, but it also had the shortest listed average time commitment at 1.56 hours (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Social service and care involved 3,187,000 people and took 2.23 hours per day on average, which suggests a more time-intensive form of volunteering than general administrative work (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Performance and cultural activities had the smallest participant base in the table at 721,000 people, yet they had the longest average duration at 2.40 hours per day (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Meetings, conferences, and training drew 2,038,000 volunteers and averaged 2.15 hours per day, placing it in the middle of the duration range (BLS ATUS 2022).

Why this matters

These figures show that the size of a volunteer category is not the same thing as its intensity. Administrative work has the biggest reach, but some smaller categories demand more time. That distinction matters when organizations plan staffing, recruit volunteers, or estimate how much time a volunteer pool can actually supply.

Quick pattern check

• Largest participation: administrative and support activities (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Longest average time: performance and cultural activities at 2.40 hours (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Highest participation among the more service-oriented tasks: social service and care at 3,187,000 people (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Most time-efficient category in this group: administrative and support activities at 1.56 hours (BLS ATUS 2022).

Volunteer demographics

The volunteer statistics also show that age and gender shape who volunteers on an average day. The dataset gives several clear demographic slices that are useful for comparing participation rates.

Gender differences

Among people age 15 and older, 5.1 percent of women volunteered on an average day in 2022, compared with 3.2 percent of men (BLS ATUS 2022). That gap is visible in the participation rates as well as in the total counts.

The age-specific patterns reinforce that gap. For example:

• Among women age 65 and older, 7.8 percent volunteered (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Among men age 65 and older, 6.4 percent volunteered (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Among women age 15 to 24, 3.5 percent volunteered (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Among men age 15 to 24, 1.9 percent volunteered (BLS ATUS 2022).

A compact view makes the contrast easier to scan.

Group	Volunteer rate on an average day in 2022
Women age 15 and older	5.1% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Men age 15 and older	3.2% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Women age 65 and older	7.8% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Men age 65 and older	6.4% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Women age 15 to 24	3.5% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Men age 15 to 24	1.9% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Women age 25 to 34	2.5% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Men age 25 to 34	3.1% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Women age 35 to 44	5.4% (BLS ATUS 2022)
Men age 35 to 44	0.9% (BLS ATUS 2022)

Age-specific signals worth noticing

The age data does not move in a single straight line. Instead, it shows pockets of stronger and weaker participation:

• Women age 35 to 44 had a 5.4 percent volunteer rate, the highest figure in the listed age slices for women under 65 (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Men age 35 to 44 had just 0.9 percent volunteering, one of the lowest figures in the dataset (BLS ATUS 2022).
• Men age 25 to 34 at 3.1 percent volunteered at a higher rate than women in the same age band at 2.5 percent (BLS ATUS 2022).

These differences matter because they show that volunteer behavior is not simply a matter of older adults volunteering more than younger adults. The patterns vary by age and gender together, and that makes broad averages easy to misread if you do not look underneath them.

How volunteer rates changed over time

The BLS ATUS time series provides one of the strongest trend signals in the dataset: volunteer participation weakened between 2012 and 2022.

The overall volunteer rate for people age 15 and older fell from 5.8 percent in 2012 to 4.2 percent in 2022 (BLS ATUS 2022). That is a decline of 1.6 percentage points across the decade.

The gender trend is more nuanced. The women’s volunteer rate rose from 4.1 percent in 2021 to 5.1 percent in 2022 (BLS ATUS 2022). So even though the long-term overall rate declined, the most recent year in the dataset showed a rebound for women.

What the trend suggests

• The decade-long decline means volunteer participation was lower in 2022 than it was in 2012 overall (BLS ATUS 2022).
• The 2021 to 2022 increase for women suggests the trend is not uniform across all groups (BLS ATUS 2022).
• The dataset supports looking at participation rates alongside total volunteer counts, because the totals can stay large even when rates soften (BLS ATUS 2022).

Small but important interpretation

A rate decline does not mean volunteering became rare. It means a smaller share of people volunteered on an average day. With more than 11 million people still volunteering in some manner on an average day in 2022, the behavior remained substantial even as the rate moved down (BLS ATUS 2022).

State and metro comparisons

The AmeriCorps civic engagement values show how formal volunteering can vary widely by geography. The dataset includes states and a large metro area, and the differences are meaningful.

State comparison table

Geography	Formal volunteers	Hours of service	Formal volunteering rate
California	7,488,073 (AmeriCorps California 2023 CEV)	490,784,652 (AmeriCorps California 2023 CEV)	24.1% (AmeriCorps California 2023 CEV)
Delaware	268,407 (AmeriCorps Delaware 2023 CEV)	16,864,791 (AmeriCorps Delaware 2023 CEV)	32.0% (AmeriCorps Delaware 2023 CEV)
Minnesota	1,832,313 (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV)	110,503,811 (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV)	40.3% (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV)
Chicago metro area	2,316,091 (AmeriCorps Chicago metro 2023 CEV)	133,326,649 (AmeriCorps Chicago metro 2023 CEV)	29.1% (AmeriCorps Chicago metro 2023 CEV)
New Mexico	341,933 (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV)	26,554,968 (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV)	20.3% (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV)

What stands out in the geography data

Minnesota is the clearest high performer in the listed geographies. It posted 1,832,313 formal volunteers, 110,503,811 hours of service, and a 40.3 percent formal volunteering rate (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV). That rate is the highest among the places listed in the dataset.

New Mexico sits at the other end of the rate comparison with a 20.3 percent formal volunteering rate and 341,933 formal volunteers (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV). Delaware is different again: it has a smaller population base in the dataset, but a 32.0 percent formal volunteering rate that places it above California and the Chicago metro area (AmeriCorps Delaware 2023 CEV).

California provides the biggest raw volunteer count in the geographic set, with 7,488,073 formal volunteers and 490,784,652 hours of service (AmeriCorps California 2023 CEV). That does not make it the highest-rate volunteer state in the table, but it does show how population size and participation rate can tell different stories.

Supporting civic participation measures

The AmeriCorps dataset also includes social connection and civic behavior indicators that help fill out the picture. For example:

• In California, 96.2 percent of residents talked to or spent time with friends or family, and 67.0 percent had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors (AmeriCorps California 2023 CEV).
• In Delaware, 76.3 percent had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors, and 48.2 percent donated $25 or more to charity (AmeriCorps Delaware 2023 CEV).
• In Minnesota, 77.5 percent had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors, and 57.2 percent donated $25 or more to charity (AmeriCorps Minnesota 2023 CEV).
• In the Chicago metro area, 73.2 percent had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors, and 48.9 percent donated $25 or more to charity (AmeriCorps Chicago metro 2023 CEV).
• In New Mexico, 61.3 percent had a conversation or spent time with their neighbors, and 37.4 percent donated $25 or more to charity (AmeriCorps New Mexico 2023 CEV).

Those measures are not the same as volunteering rates, but they are useful context because they show how formal volunteering sits alongside informal help, neighbor interaction, organizational membership, and charitable giving.

Global and OECD context

The dataset is not limited to the United States. It also places volunteer statistics in a wider international frame.

Across OECD countries, just under one-quarter of the population formally volunteers at least once a month (OECD 2024 volunteering report). That is a useful benchmark because it describes regular formal volunteering rather than an occasional event.

The OECD webinar figure is even larger in absolute terms: more than 860 million people around the world volunteer at least once a month, which equals about 15 percent of the global population (OECD 2024 webinar).

Why the global figures matter

These global statistics show that volunteering is both local and systemic. The United States data describes daily participation and state-level formal volunteering. The OECD figures show that monthly formal volunteering is common across countries and large enough to measure at global scale.

One more figure adds economic context: volunteer engagement contributes an estimated 1.9 percent to GDP in OECD countries (OECD 2024 webinar). That number is not a simple headcount. It suggests volunteer activity has measurable economic value in addition to its social value.

How to read these volunteer statistics

When you use volunteer statistics, the most useful approach is to keep four questions in mind.

1. What is being measured?

   • Some figures count people volunteering on an average day (BLS ATUS 2022).
   • Others count formal volunteers, hours of service, or civic engagement behaviors at state and metro level (AmeriCorps 2023 CEV).
   • OECD figures focus on monthly formal volunteering and broader international context (OECD 2024 volunteering report; OECD 2024 webinar).

2. Is it a rate or a count?

   • Rates show participation intensity.
   • Counts show scale.
   • California’s 7,488,073 formal volunteers are a scale story, while Minnesota’s 40.3 percent formal volunteering rate is a participation story (AmeriCorps 2023 CEV).

3. How does the activity type change the interpretation?

   • Administrative work pulls in the most people.
   • Performance and cultural work takes the longest average time.
   • Social service and care combines a large participant base with a higher time commitment than administrative work (BLS ATUS 2022).

4. What time frame is being used?

   • A single day can look different from a month or a year.
   • That is why the BLS daily measure, the AmeriCorps civic engagement snapshot, and the OECD monthly indicators should not be mixed as if they were the same thing (BLS ATUS 2022; AmeriCorps 2023 CEV; OECD 2024 report and webinar).

Practical reading tip

If you only remember one pattern from these volunteer statistics, make it this: volunteering remains widespread, but the shape of participation changes a lot depending on whether you look at daily behavior, formal service, geographic variation, or global monthly participation (BLS ATUS 2022; AmeriCorps 2023 CEV; OECD 2024).