Nonprofits see volunteers steadily return after the COVID-19 pandemic tanked public participation

From foster grandparents who volunteer at an early child care center to citizen scientists who collect water quality data in remote locations, nonprofit volunteers have come back after the pandemic.

A new survey released in November from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps shows 28.3% or 75.8 million people in the U.S. volunteered with a nonprofit between September 2022 and September 2023. That is a rebound since COVID-19 public health shutdowns tanked participation by almost 7 percentage points to 23.2% in 2021, the last time the survey was conducted. It is not a full return to pre-pandemic rates of volunteerism.

The drop in volunteer participation was a wake up call for nonprofits, said AmeriCorps CEO Michael D. Smith, and a real test of whether volunteers, whose habits and routines