The Pandemic's Thumbprint on Volunteering: Navigating the Bumps and Finding Opportunities

Legend has it that Czar Nicholas I drew the line for the St. Petersburg/Moscow railway along a ruler but had his finger in the way. As a result, the railroad is completely straight except for one bump in the line.

Like many stories that are too good to be true, it’s not true. But it exemplifies a metric challenge we have and will have in the years to come.

Americorps released its?Current Population Survey Civic Engagement and Volunteering report ?wherein every other year, they look at measures of our civic health. This year, there was a tremendous uproar because the percentage of Americans who volunteered dropped from 30% to 23%.

However, looking at when the data were collected, you see they started in September 2020.

Can you think of anything in 2020 that may have discouraged people from volunteering face-to-face? Something that starts with a C and hopefully ends with a worldwide vaccination program?

The graph of volunteering will likely look like the Russian railway —straight with a down bump in it.

Same with the stock prices of Peloton and Zoom, but with an up bump.

And shipping costs. And framing lumber. And e-commerce usage. And air travel.

And nonprofit donations and donor counts.

For the next few years, every graph we show will have that outline of the czar’s thumb that comes from the pandemic, shortages, inflation, and war.

And it’s important we talk about the asterisk.

We need to say that revenues are 10% down year-over-year and up 30% from three years ago.

We need to say that donor numbers have swelled, but the overall sector trend is sadly down.

We need to say that volunteering is vitally important, so it’s concerning when we see numbers fall. We must note that volunteering was at a two-decade high in the 2019 study, so there may be some post-pandemic regression to the trend in the next study.

In short, we need to look past headlines to context and, ideally, solutions. Volunteering and donating aren’t substitutes. Rather,?those who donate are more likely to volunteer and vice versa . This is why we encourage nonprofits to include volunteer data as part of their modeling — you never know who is a volunteer for you and a prolific donor to other organizations unless you look.

Now that we know the volunteer sky isn’t falling, we can hopefully help?engage people in this life-affirming activity ?and create the donors of the future.