America needs more volunteers. Volunteerism is on the decline across the country as Americans spend more time at home and less time in their communities.

A report from AmeriCorps titled, “Volunteering and Civic Life in America Research Summary,” finds 23 percent of Americans, or just over 60 million people, were formal volunteers with organizations between September 2020 and 2021. This is the equivalent of just over 4 billion volunteer hours resulting a positive impact of $122 billion in economic value. 

AmeriCorps is the federal agency for national service and volunteerism. The report divides volunteering into two categories: formal volunteering with an organization and informal helping that is done in a non-organized context.

Formal volunteering fell from 30 percent in 2019 to 23 percent in 2021, with women seeing the largest drop in volunteering at a rate of 8 percent while the rate of men volunteering fell by 5 percent.

Veterans also had a high informal helping rate of 59 percent, 8 percent higher than non-veterans. 

Montana had the highest rate of informal volunteerism at 68 percent, while Nevada had the lowest at 36 percent. Regionally, the Philadelphia Metro area had the highest formal volunteerism rate at nearly 29 percent and the highest informal volunteerism rate at just under 58 percent. 

The Riverside Metro area had the lowest formal volunteerism rate at 9 percent, while Miami had the lowest informal volunteer rate at just over 35 percent. 

According to USA Facts, Gen X had the highest rate of volunteerism at 27 percent; however, by age, those 16 to 17 years old had the highest rate of volunteering at 28 percent.

Volunteerism saw a small uptick during the pandemic, as 50 percent of Americans over the age of 16 provided informal help to their neighbors during the pandemic. Meanwhile, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 16 took part in some form of formal volunteering. 

A report from the National Council of Nonprofits finds that the need for volunteers continues to grow post-pandemic. By mid-2022, nearly half of nonprofit CEOs reported recruiting enough volunteers was still “a big problem," while formal volunteering dropped more than 23 percent in 2021 compared with 2019.