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Title:

Decade Long Downward Spiral of Volunteerism

Social Media Disconnect Between Nonprofits and Volunteers

Author:

Himanshu Minocha

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore various factors impacting the decline of

volunteerism in America and to research volunteer recruitment efforts by Nonprofits on

social media. Quantification of volunteer recruiting effort of Nonprofits on social media

and comparing it to the overall adoption of social media by Nonprofits, the general

population and job seekers may provide useful correlation to a long term decline of

volunteerism.

Introduction & Background

Volunteerism is deeply embedded in the American culture. We have a rich

tradition of volunteering based on the fundamental principle that in order to improve

people’s lives in our community, we must be willing to give our time, resources and

sometimes even our lives. The spirit of volunteerism goes all the way back to the early

18th century. In 1736, Benjamin Franklin founded the first volunteerbased firehouse. A

few decades later, during the Revolutionary War, an army of mostly volunteer soldiers

gave their lives fighting for our country’s independence. This trend of American

volunteer activity continued post Civil War and through the 20th century. During the

Great Depression, when millions of people were unemployed and homeless, American

Volunteers stepped up and created many soup kitchens and food pantries for people in

need. The tradition of volunteerism continued throughout the 20th century where

Americans started to break out of their national borders and started to make an impact

on impoverished nations worldwide. Given our history of volunteerism over the last 300

years, it seems fair to say that volunteerism has become a core American value.

Starting in 2002, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) started to keep track of volunteer

rate in America in order to assist the Nonprofit organizations recruit volunteers

effectively. Unfortunately, over the last decade, there has been a disturbing trend

regarding volunteer rates, putting this core American value at risk. Figure 1 shows

volunteer data published by the BLS broken out by age group and education level, from

2005 through 2014 (the most recent data published at the time of writing). There is a

decline in every single age & education group (Figure 2), with the most severe decline

observed among the people who have a graduate degree and above (Figure 3). On

average, a decline of 3.4% was observed across all the age groups. The graduates saw

a decline of 6.4%. It is important to note that even though the decline in percentage is in

single digits, it still represents a loss of millions of volunteers.

Figure 1 Volunteer Data Published By BLS (20052014)

Figure 2 % decline in volunteerism (20052014)

Figure 3 Volunteerism decline among college graduates and trendline

Misconceptions Regarding The Decline In Volunteerism

There have been many theories and misconceptions that have tried to explain

the decline in volunteerism over the past decade. Some of these are

A. Correlation of the unemployment rate to the rate of volunteerism

B. There are less Nonprofits organizations now, therefore, there are less

volunteer opportunities

C. Colleges and employers are placing less importance on voluntary

community service as part of admissions/recruitments

A. Correlation of unemployment rate to the rate of volunteerism Many

theories have tried to correlate unemployment rates with rate of volunteerism. There are

conflicting opinions regarding volunteer rates tracking the unemployment rate. Some

suggest that volunteer rate follows unemployment rate “The volunteering rate tends to

track the unemployment rate,” (Nathan Dietz) while others have observed that lower

unemployment has led to a higher rate of volunteerism “The volunteer rate hit its peak

in the early 2000s, when the jobless rate was lower than it is now” (Danielle Kurtzleben).

Table 1 shows unemployment rate from 2005 to 2015 based on the data provided by

BLS. Table 2 shows volunteer rate for college graduates from 20052014 based on the

data provided by BLS.

Year 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Unemployment Rate (%) 5.1 4.6 4.6 5.8 9.3 9.6 8.9 8.1 7.4 6.2 5.4

Table 1 Unemployment data published by BLS (20052015)

Year 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Volunteer Rate (%) 45.8 43.3 41.8 42.2 42.8 42.3 42.4 42.2 39.8 39.4

Table 2 Volunteer rates data published by BLS (20052014)

Figure 4 Unemployment data published by BLS (20052015)

Figure 5 Volunteer rates data published by BLS (20052014)

According to BLS, during 2005 when the unemployment rate (Figure 4) was at 5.1%,

there were 45.8% (Figure 5) volunteers. In 2014 the unemployment rate was at 6.2%

and the rate of volunteerism was at its all time low at 39.4%. Looking at the data for the

past decade, while the unemployment rate has fluctuated significantly during some

years and stayed relatively flat over some years, the rate of volunteerism has declined.

Based on the graphs in Figure 4 and Figure 5, from 2005 to 2014, there is no clear

direct or inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and the volunteer rate.

B. There are less Nonprofits organizations now, therefore, there are less

volunteer opportunities The decline in volunteers is also not a result of scarcity of

volunteers jobs. While the rate of volunteers is declining, the number of Nonprofits have

actually gone up significantly in the past decade. Figure 4 shows that there are almost

400,000 more Nonprofits in 2015 than in 2005. This data includes the decrease of more

than 275,000 Nonprofits in 2011 that lost their taxexempt status with the Internal

Revenue Services. This denotes an increase of approximately 25.5% of Nonprofits in

just 10 years. Since, Nonprofits rely heavily on volunteers, significantly large number of

Nonprofits being formed should result in more volunteer opportunities in the United

States, not less.

Figure 4 Growth of tax exempt entities (Nonprofits)

The juxtaposition of the increased number of Nonprofits and the decline of

volunteers paints an even more stark picture. Figure 5 shows the number of volunteers

from 2005 through 2015. In 2005 there was approximately 46 volunteers for every

Nonprofit. In 2014, that number declined to approximately 35 volunteers per Nonprofit.

This means that there was about 23.5% decrease in the number of volunteers per

Nonprofit.

Figure 5 Number of volunteers per Nonprofit (20052014)

C. Colleges and employers are placing less importance on voluntary

community service as part of admissions/recruitments Among the various skills

that colleges and employers are looking for, many people believe that volunteerism is

no longer high on the priority list of admission officers/employers. This actually could not

be further from the truth. According to Miriam Salpeter, who wrote an article in the

USNews, “Admissions officers are increasingly placing a larger emphasis on community

service work when evaluating college applicants”(Miriam Salpeter). In a survey

conducted by Dosomething.org in 2011, the results were that “admission officers place

a high value on a student’s longterm commitment to a cause or organization”. One can

also see a similar trend among the employers. Employers are putting greater emphasis

on candidates with strong community service as part of the skill sets they are looking for

in a potential employee. On LinkedIn, volunteerism “was the most requested

field,”(Krista Canfield) said Krista Canfield, a spokeswoman for LinkedIn. “People

realize that one way to nudge ahead of the competition is through volunteer work”(Krista

Canfield).

Social Media Growth as Primary Source of Information & Job Search

Our society and community at large has gone through major transformations in

terms of how we access information. In the last decade, there has been an explosive

growth of social media and mobile internet consumption as seen in Figure 6. Social

media has become a primary source of information across all age groups.

According to Vicki Coleman “Social media expands our reach more quickly, much

further, and at a grander scale through words, pictures, and videos. Social media tools

such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram empower individuals to share their

voice in a mediacentric model ”

Figure 6 Social media use by age group (Pew Research Center)

Social media is used in a significant way that has allowed individuals to connect to each

other socially and professionally. Organizations are also using social media to create

brand awareness as well as to disseminate information to their customers and potential

employees. Social media has also matured into a major platform for job seekers. More

than 83 percent of job seekers use Facebook to search for jobs, and 76 percent of

social job seekers found their current job through social media, according to Jobvite.

Given that social media has reached such a large audience in general and specifically

job seekers, one can draw an inference that people who are looking to volunteer would

also use social media as a primary source for finding volunteer opportunities at the

Nonprofit organizations. Typically, the Nonprofits are slow to adopt new technologies

and trends, primarily due to cost constraints and lack of resources. Since most social

media is free and quite easy to setup and maintain, Nonprofits have been quick to adopt

social media. In fact, a study conducted by Steven Shattuck shows that more than 98%

of the Nonprofits use social media as seen in Figure 7 Nonprofits have been primarily

tailoring their social media use towards getting brand recognition, sharing news about

their organization and cause, as well as for fundraising.

Figure 7 social media adoption by Nonprofits (Steven Shattuck)

Nonprofits and Social Media Recruitment of Volunteers

Even though social media remains a fertile ground for finding employment by the

job seekers, based on a study conducted by AARP, only 19% of the people signed up

for volunteer opportunity on social media sites. In a separate study conducted by

Steven Shattuck, who surveyed more than 9000 Nonprofits for his study, volunteer

recruitment did not even make it to the top three goals for Nonprofits. People are using

social media as a primary tool to find opportunities, but Nonprofits have not made

volunteer recruitment a priority on social media. This disconnect between the volunteers

and the Nonprofits has caused volunteerism to decline. To prove this hypothesis, an

analysis was done on the Nonprofit efforts into hiring volunteers

Methodology

1. Based on the information available from the Internal Revenue

Services(IRS), a database was created of all registered Nonprofits in the

United States. In this database, there are more than 1.5 million Nonprofits

with attributes stored such as name, Employer Identification Number

(EIN), address, state, income level, etc.

2. The database also contains an attribute named NTEE_CD. NTEE_CD

(National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities Code) is a category assignment

that designates the type of Nonprofit. For example, code A07 stands for

Museum, D03 is designated for animal protection.

3. The data was then segmented by NTEE Code for analysis. Since there

are more than 1.5 million Nonprofits in the database, all the NTEE codes

with less than 1,000 Nonprofits in the category were not considered to

keep the sample size manageable. With this elimination, there were 144

NTEE codes left, with each NTEE category containing at least 1,000

Nonprofits.

4. All the Nonprofits with an annual income of less than $0 were excluded

from the analysis

5. From this database, 2 lists were created,

a. List A (Figure 9) was created based on the median income of

Nonprofits within each NTEE Code

b. List B (Figure 10) was created based on the median income of

Nonprofits within each STATE

6. For each Nonprofit identified in both the lists, an attempt was made to

identify the Facebook page using the following criteria:

a. A Google search was done based on the Nonprofit name, city and

state to identify the Facebook book for the Nonprofit

b. If Facebook page was not found in the above step, an attempt was

made to identify the website address for the Nonprofit to help locate

the Facebook information from the website

c. If no Facebook page was found in the above steps, it was assumed

that the Nonprofit did not have a Facebook page.

7. If a Facebook page was identified for the Nonprofit, a search was

performed on all public posts to identify posts deemed relevant to

volunteer recruitment.

a. The phrases/keywords used for searches:

i. “Volunteer”

ii. “Seeking help”

iii. “Recruitment”

iv. “Need help”

b. Some phrases/keywords were excluded from the search because

these phrases did not directly relate to volunteer recruitment:

i. “Thanks to our volunteers”

ii. “We are a volunteer run organization”

iii. “Volunteer appreciation”

8. For each Nonprofit with a Facebook page, year of the oldest and the most

recent post was recorded to compute average frequency of volunteer

recruitment related posts over a period of time.

9. Only Facebook was used to test the premise primarily because it is the

most popular social network among the general population (i.e.

volunteers) as well as Nonprofits.

Figure 8 is a screenshot of the database query that sorts the Nonprofits by NTEE

code.

Figure 8 snapshot of database containing 1.5 million Nonprofits

Figure 9 Nonprofits with NTEE Code A20B99

Figure 9 Nonprofits with NTEE Code B99ZM24

Figure 9 Nonprofits with NTEE Code M24ZQ30

Figure 9 Nonprofits with NTEE Code Q300Z99Z

Figure 10 Nonprofits with State AKOR

Figure 10 Nonprofits with State PAWY

Results & Conclusions

Based on the data collected in Figure 9 and Figure 10, following are the key findings of

the data analyzed:

Criteria for selection NTEE CODE

Sample Size 143

Average number of years on Facebook 4.09

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings 253

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings Per Nonprofit 1.769

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings Per Nonprofit Per Year 0.43

% of Nonprofit on Facebook 94.40%

Table 3 Nonprofit volunteer job postings on Facebook by NTEE code

Criteria for selection STATE

Sample Size 51

Average number of years on Facebook 4.14

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings 86

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings Per Nonprofit 1.68

Volunteer Recruitment Job Postings Per Nonprofit Per Year 0.40

% of Nonprofit on Facebook 94.11%

Table 4 Nonprofit volunteer job postings on Facebook by STATE

The data seems to suggest that an overwhelming number of Nonprofits aren't

using social media as an effective tool for volunteer recruitment. The data from the two

different lists of Nonprofits have nearly identical volunteer recruitment rates. Nonprofits

grouped by NTEE Code had an average of 1.7 volunteer recruitment posts over a

period of 4.09 years. This means that on average there were 0.43 posts per year for the

Nonprofit volunteer recruitment requests. Similarly, for the Nonprofits grouped by State,

there were about 1.68 posts attempting to recruit volunteers over a course of 4.14

years. On average, each Nonprofit in this group had 0.40 posts per year trying to recruit

volunteers. In both sets of data, it is apparent that Nonprofits have not prioritized

volunteer recruitment in their social media strategy. Less than 1 post per year related to

recruiting volunteers is not benefitting the Nonprofits. More than 90 percent of

Nonprofits are already on social media and more than 80 percent of job seekers and

potential volunteers are looking for opportunities on Facebook. This research highlights

how inadequate the Nonprofits’ efforts have been in using social media to recruit

volunteers. It is apparent that there is a disconnect between potential volunteers and

Nonprofits seeking them. For volunteerism to thrive again, this disconnect needs to be

addressed by all Nonprofits. Nonprofits need to embrace social media for volunteer

recruitment also and not just use social media as a platform for brand awareness and

fundraising.

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