Habitat for Humanity has a Better Built Program that promotes energy-efficient, environmentally friendly construction and encourages good stewardship of natural resources and raises awareness of the environmental impact of house building.

Jerome P. Baggett is professor of religion and society for the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley at the Graduate Theological Union. He wrote the book Habitat for Humanity: Building Private Homes, Building Public Religion (2000) and Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith (2009). He is currently conducting a research project on American atheists. He […]

Ram A. Cnaan is a leading expert on faith-based social services and the chair of the doctoral program in social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He wrote the article “Defining Who Is a Volunteer: Conceptual and Empirical Considerations” for the journal Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (1996). He is also director of the Program […]

Eighty-seven percent of those 45 and older had volunteered to help their community or a person in need in the last 12 months, according to “Time and Money: An In-Depth Look at 45+ Volunteers and Donors,” a 2003 study by AARP.

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 […]