Giving and Volunteering showing mixed results. (Newsline).

In a nation that tamed frontiers through community efforts and that found itself coming together to donate time and money at a time of national crisis, the latest results from Independent Sector's (IS) Giving and Volunteering survey show some mixed results.

The good news is people were volunteering their time and money - even before the September 11 tragedies. The bad news is the contributions of time seemed to have go down.

It's hard to be definitive with the latest results, however, because it's impossible to make a clear comparison with the past surveys in many areas.

While there are significant changes in the methodology underpinning the survey, the most obvious difference is in who wasn't included. The new survey, conducted from May through July 2001, no longer includes those between 18 and 21 in age. The decision to start the survey at age 21 meant people from the lower end of the giving scale were eliminated, but it also reduced volunteering figures.

Looking only at people 21 and older, the survey found 44 percent of adults volunteered with a formal organization in 2000 - a total of 83.9 million volunteers. They volunteered approximately 15.5 billion hours in 2000, which represented the equivalent of nine million full-time employees, valued at $239 billion. IS estimated a volunteer's hourly value at $15.40 in 2001, based on the average hourly wage for nonagricultural workers plus 12 percent for estimated fringe benefits.

Another telling change was the percentage of those who volunteered when asked, reported at 63 percent in the latest survey. In 1999 the finding was 90 percent of individuals volunteered when asked. In 2001, 50 percent of all people were asked to volunteer.

The survey included 4,216 adult Americans, according to Chris Toppe, senior analyst with IS, who presented the findings during the organization's recent annual conference in Atlanta. The survey methodology in the past had been a "block clustering" method and in-home interviews. This time IS used a random national digitized dialing telephone survey.

There was also a change in how raw results were weighted. There was one weighting schema for households and another for individuals, with two different question sets. Giving data, therefore, were weighted to represent households (105 million), and volunteering data were weighted to represent the total non-institutionalized U.S. adult population (195 million).

Toppe noted that the wealthiest households are the primary donors, with 13 percent of households giving one-third of the total. IS's latest giving numbers showed 89 percent of households made charitable contributions, with the average contributing household giving $1,620 or 3.2 percent of household income. That amount included cash as well as property, stocks and other valuable items.

The average donation from a household that also volunteered was nearly $2,300 - more than double the contribution level of households that didn't volunteer ($1,009). And the average donation from households asked to make donations was significantly higher ($1,945) than those households not asked to contribute ($1,109).

Of those surveyed 60 percent indicated they had Internet access, and 13 percent of those said they investigated charities online. Still, online giving is not prevalent. Of the subgroup that investigate charities online, 12 percent made a donation over the Internet. "Less than 2 percent of all respondents contribute over the Internet," Toppe said.

While those younger than 21 weren't included in this survey, their importance was not completely forgotten. Toppe said adults who became involved in giving and volunteering before age 18 maintained that involvement into their adulthood.

For those who gave as youth, their household giving levels were $1,869 compared to $1,219 for households where the adults didn't start charitable acts young.

Volunteering in the United States, 2000

Percentage of adults who volunteered                            44%
Total number of adult volunteers                       83.9 million
Average weekly hours per volunteer                        3.6 hours
Annual hours volunteered                         15.5 billion hours
Estimated hourly value of volunteer time (*)        $15.40 per hour
Total dollar value of volunteer time                 $239.2 billion
Percentage of adults asked to volunteer                         50%
Percentage of adults who volunteered when asked                 63%

Note: All volunteering numbers are for individual adults over the age of
21 who report service for an organization (excluding informal
volunteering.)

(*)The hourly value of volunteer time is updated yearly by INDEPENDENT
SECTOR, and is based on the average hourly wage for nonagricultural
workers, as published in The Economic Report of the President (2001
Edition), increased by 12% to estimate fringe benefits.
Giving and Volunteering

                    Percentage of
                        Adult
                     Population

Give only                46%
Give and volunteer       42%
Volunteer only            2%
Neither                  10%

Note: Table made from bar graph