Richard Flory is a sociologist and executive director of the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. He studies religious change, the spiritual practices of young adults and religion in Los Angeles. He is the author of Spirit and Power: The Growth and Global Impact of Pentecostalism and  The Rise of […]

Doyle Paul Johnson is a professor of sociology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He wrote the article “Ecumenical Outreach Coalitions: Using Open-System Role-Set Theory to Examine Church and Community Cooperation” for the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (1997).

Charles E. Zech is a professor of economics at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He wrote the article “The Value of Volunteers as Resources for Congregations” for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1998).

Read “Companies That Care,” a Forbes magazine article about companies that encourage volunteerism and philanthropy among their employees.

This 2007 report by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s Tisch College and released jointly with the National Conference on Citizenship found that 25 percent of young adults who have attended college volunteered in 2007 while only 11 percent of those with no college experience volunteered. This gap has […]

Independent Sector provides a useful list of recent studies on giving and volunteering.

This 2012 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study shows volunteer statistics by gender, race and age. The volunteer rate was 26.5 percent in 2012. About 64.5 million people volunteered through or for an organization at least once between September 2011 and September 2012.

The 2012 lists by The Chronicle of Philanthropy look at 2011 giving as a share of 2010 profits to determine which of America’s big companies are the most philanthropic.

According to a 2010 study by AARP, the number of baby boomers and older Americans volunteering outside of a formal organization increased from 34 percent in 2003 to 57 percent in 2009. Seven in 10 boomers reported they are engaged in volunteering either on their own or through an organization, a 20 percent increase over […]