Midwestern Cities Fare Best in Luring Volunteers

Four out of 10 residents of Minneapolis-St. Paul volunteer annually, more than in any other of the nation’s

50 biggest metropolitan areas, a new report by the federal government says.

Las Vegas, where 14 percent of residents volunteer, was at the bottom of the rankings.

The report, the first to analyze city-by-city trends in volunteerism, was based on annual surveys of 60,000 households.

Researchers said that cities with the highest proportion of volunteers tend to be places where a large share of residents own their homes, have shorter commutes to their jobs, and possess at least a high-school education.

Meanwhile, people who live in those cities with fewer nonprofit groups per capita are less likely to donate their time to charitable causes, according to the report by the Corporation for National and Community Service, in Washington.

The report seeks to zero in on those aspects of a city that may affect how easy it is for volunteers to become involved in charitable causes, and to help civic leaders gauge both how their cities compare with other metropolitan areas of similar size and how they can overcome obstacles to low volunteer rates.

“Communities with high levels of citizen engagement will come closer to solving some of the key challenges facing our society today,” say the report’s authors, who also point to studies that link volunteering with increased life-expectancy rates and other health benefits.

The volunteer rates and rankings are based on an average of data culled from surveys in 2004, 2005, and 2006. Among the study’s findings:

• Of the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest volunteer rates, six are clustered in the central section of the country: Minneapolis-St. Paul; Austin, Tex.; Omaha; Kansas City, Mo.; Milwaukee; and Tulsa, Okla.
• Cities with higher percentages of homeowners — a major factor in what the report calls “community attachment” — tend to also have greater numbers of volunteers.

  For example, 70 percent of families in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area own their homes, while that figure drops to 49 percent in Honolulu, which has a far lower volunteerism rate of 23 percent.

• Residents’ average education levels are a “strong predictor” of their likelihood of volunteering time to charitable causes. The report contrasts Portland, Ore. — where 87 percent of adult residents have completed high school and 36 percent volunteer — with Riverside, Calif., where 75 percent have finished high school and just 21 percent volunteer.
• Lengthy, solitary work commutes appear to curtail “the time and opportunity individuals have to connect to other people and organizations in their communities, reducing average volunteer rates.” The report cites the average commute in Los Angeles, which is about 28 minutes, and the city’s volunteer rate of just over 22 percent. In contrast, the average commute in Kansas City is shorter — about 22 minutes — and that city has a volunteer rate that hovers near 35 percent.
• Cities with fewer numbers of nonprofit organizations per resident — such as Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla.; and Riverside — tend to have lower volunteerism rates, in large part because such metropolitan areas lack ways to recruit and retain volunteers.

The report also asserts that there is a “strong positive relationship between volunteer retention and the volunteer rate” in the cities surveyed.

It contrasts Tulsa, where 73 percent of volunteers continued to donate their time from one year to the next, with Virginia Beach, where just 60 percent did so. The overall volunteer rate for Tulsa was 34 percent, while 19 percent of Virginia Beach’s residents volunteer.

The report’s authors suggest several ways through which community leaders can spur volunteerism, raising what they term “social capital.”

It suggested that policy makers be urged to adopt more-flexible work schedules and that community leaders work with schools to encourage greater civic engagement among young people. It also suggested that nonprofit organizations reassess how they weave volunteers into their work.

The report, “Volunteering in America: 2007 City Trends and Rankings,” is available free at the corporation’s Web site.