Volunteerism is a primarily American phenomenom anyway, and strongly tied to religiosity, which would explain its being uniquely American, and probably ties in with charity giving, as mentioned above. We do know that red staters donate a greater percentage of their income than blue staters. Of course, this could be because blue staters are taxed at a higher rate and expect the goverment to do more for its citizens. But even with these variations it is very safe to say that volunteerism is alive and well and one of the few remaining American values that is shared across all of the socioeconomic and political spectrums. High schools both private and public often require volunteer hours as part of the curriculum. It’s simply expected that people who can, will.
So is there really a problem with volunteering? Or is it that there are so many organizations vying for the time of of a volunteer that there simply aren’t enough to go around? Without a real study showing a decline in volunteer hours, I’m inclined to believe that is the problem. And what a great problem to have.
For example, Habitat For Humanity has been so successful and grown so much (except for a drop in funding around 9/11) that one of its stated “problems” is revenue outstripping volunteer capacity. Is this bad? Or do we just have more people who can donate “treasure” instead of “time”?
