From foster grandparents who volunteer at an early child care center to citizen scientists who collect water quality data in remote locations, nonprofit volunteers have come back after the pandemic.
A new survey released Tuesday from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps shows 28.3% or 75.8 million people in the U.S. volunteered with a nonprofit between Sept. 2022 and Sept. 2023. That is a rebound since COVID-19 public health shutdowns tanked participation by almost 7 percentage points to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to pre-pandemic rates of volunteerism.
