February 17, 2005 | Read Time: 2 minutes
By Sharnell Bryan
Fifty-seven percent of American adults volunteered for a charitable cause in 2004, an increase of 9 percentage points over the proportion that volunteered in 2003, according to a new survey.
The survey was commissioned by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a nonprofit financial-services organization in Minneapolis, and was based on telephone interviews with 1,002 U.S. adults.
Of those who said they volunteered, 75 percent cited their own moral values as the main factor in their decisions.
Forty-seven percent of the volunteers said they were motivated by the opportunity to gain new experiences, while 42 percent said they felt an obligation to volunteer because they had received help from a volunteer.
Thirty-nine percent said they volunteered as a way to meet new people.
Regional Differences
People in the South were more likely to volunteer than respondents living in other regions — 62 percent of those from the South helped a charitable cause.
Sixty percent of Midwesterners reported volunteering, while 54 percent of those in the West volunteered, and 49 percent in the North did so.
People who are religious tend to volunteer frequently, the survey found. Seventy-two percent of volunteers said they attended weekly religious services.
Among the other findings: 68 percent of volunteers were college graduates, and 62 percent had an income of at least $75,000 a year.
The survey also reported that 50 percent of Americans believe volunteering their time is more beneficial than donating money to charity, while 20 percent believe that donations are more valuable. Twenty-six percent believe donations of time and money are equally valuable.
Plans for 2005
Asked how much volunteering they plan to do in 2005, 58 percent of the volunteers said they are likely to spend the same amount of time volunteering as they spent last year, while 27 percent said they were likely to do more volunteer work. Fourteen percent said they would spend fewer hours volunteering this year than last year.
A summary of the survey findings is available online at http://www.thrivent.com.
