May 21, 1998 | Read Time: 3 minutes
More than one in three Americans ages 15 to 29 have volunteered in the past year, according to a new national survey by the charity Do Something.
That is significantly fewer than the more than 50 per cent of Americans ages 35 to 54 who said they were active volunteers in response to Independent Sector’s most recent survey of volunteering trends.
While the figures for young people were lower than those for middle-aged Americans, what alarmed leaders of Do Something, a New York group that encourages volunteerism, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, which sponsored the survey, is that only 3 per cent of young people said that in the past 12 months they had gotten involved in an organization that focused on elections or politics.
It’s as if youth today divide the civic world into two continents, Pew officials say. One is composed of non-political activities such as volunteering, and the other of traditional activities like voting, they say. “We used to talk about young adults as Generation X,” says Rebecca Rimel, Pew’s president. “But now we’ve moved into Generation Why. Why should I care? Why should I bother to get involved?”
In an attempt to turn the situation around, the Pew Charitable Trusts last week announced $5-million in new grants for public-education campaigns and other efforts to persuade young people to become more involved in civic affairs:
* Rock the Vote — established in 1990 by prominent figures in the recording industry — will receive $2.4-million over two years to kick off Rock the Nation, a campaign that will produce youth-oriented public-service television, radio, and print advertisements to increase young people’s involvement in community service and activism. The Santa Monica, Cal., group will also hold town forums, featuring music performances and highlighting the work of non-profit organizations, in 15 U.S. cities.
* Do Something — co-founded by the actor Andrew Shue and his friend Michael Sanchez in 1993 — will receive $2.3-million over three years. The charity will start a Young People Strengthening Communities Campaign, which will help civic groups and charities recruit young people to volunteer. It will also try to make sure charities are prepared to respond to the young adults that answer Rock the Nation’s call to volunteerism.
* Who Cares magazine — a non-profit publication established in 1993 by several recent college graduates — will receive $100,000 to expand its coverage of how young adults are working to solve problems in their neighborhoods.
Complete results of the survey, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,002 young adults and was conducted by Princeton Survey Associates in October and November 1997, are scheduled to be released in September by Do Something. At the same time, the group plans to release a companion survey of 250 community organizations and their experiences with young volunteers.
The preliminary results from the survey found that not all young adults were unwilling to get involved. Many of those surveyed said they would become more involved in neighborhood affairs if they got a nudge from a teacher, coach, or friend.
In other cases, young people said they would be more willing to volunteer if charities made better use of youth and their skills.
Twenty-nine per cent of those who already serve as volunteers said they felt that non-profit organizations did not take advantage of all they had to offer.
Officials at the Pew Charitable Trusts said they hoped that by making grants to stimulate volunteering, they would also be able to show young people the value of traditional political participation.
“We’re trying to broaden the notion of what it means to get involved,” says Betsy Hubbard, a Pew program officer.
For example, she explains, if a student sought to get lights installed on a public basketball court, he or she might begin to ask questions such as, “Why don’t we have lights here? Who do we have to go to? If it’s the recreation department, then who determines the budget?”
Thinking about who controls budgets might make voting and getting involved in politics seem more relevant, Ms. Hubbard says, adding: “It’s a domino effect.”
