Despite economy, more volunteers

[Malak]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37708730/ns/us_news-giving/

Charitable donations fell last year, as some people seemed to choose to give time rather than money.

Seems people are willing to help regardless of the economy. Average time of only 52 hours for the whole year means average of 1 hour a week, seems a bit low to me. Certainly more than I do right now. Although if I didn't have to worry about bills I would probably volunteer full time.

Have you ever done volunteer work?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

yes
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2076931

 

[Powermoloch]

Yes :thumbsup:

 

[Juked07]

Poll clearly not exhaustive. Donno what to mark.

 

[0roo0roo]

erm, are more academic programs demanding more volunteer hours for some courses of study as well?

 

[Hacp]

Despite economy or because of the economy?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

erm, are more academic programs demanding more volunteer hours for some courses of study as well?

Can you call it volunteering when you have to do it in-order to obtain something you want? I think it's just work at that point.

 

[Terzo]

I think it makes sense. If you're out of a job, you've got a lot of free time. Sure, you should be spending a lot of time looking for a new one but I imagine there will be spare time. Volunteering gives you something to do, as well as potential experience for your resume.

 

[StrangerGuy]

It's like saying water is wet.

OH MAN I DIDNT KNOW THAT, THANKS...j/k

 

[Bignate603]

Yeah, I help run a local boy scout troop here. It takes a few hours each week plus usually one whole weekend a month.

 

[0roo0roo]

Can you call it volunteering when you have to do it in-order to obtain something you want? I think it's just work at that point.

yea its total bullsh*t, but some college programs require it, and of course hs students have always had to fluff their academic resumes for college.... but since its called voluteering, its probably counted

 

[Jeeebus]

If that surprises you, this is going to blow your mind...

In the summer, people eat more ice cream.

 

[Homerboy]

I think Disney's "Give a Day, Get a Day" program horribly skewed these numbers. Honestly I do. The numbers of people that volunteered for that program were OUTRAGEOUS.

 

[Wyndru]

Nope, I thoroughly enjoy my laziness.

 

[DrPizza]

How did they determine the number of volunteer hours? Polls? There's been more research lately into (I can't remember the term - some sort of bias.) - People being polled are biased toward answering what they think is more socially expected. For example, if you poll people about their church attendance, you typically get about a 40% have attended recently. But, if you attempt to figure out how many people went to church another way: counting all the people actually in attendance in an entire county, you suddenly discover that the 40% figure is very high.

 

[mmntech]

I think it makes sense. If you're out of a job, you've got a lot of free time. Sure, you should be spending a lot of time looking for a new one but I imagine there will be spare time. Volunteering gives you something to do, as well as potential experience for your resume.

This.

 

[CRXican]

I think it makes sense. If you're out of a job, you've got a lot of free time. Sure, you should be spending a lot of time looking for a new one but I imagine there will be spare time. Volunteering gives you something to do, as well as potential experience for your resume.

Yep, if you have a gap in employment and aren't going to school or something it helps to be at least doing something halfway worthwhile.

 

[pmv]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37708730/ns/us_news-giving/



Seems people are willing to help regardless of the economy. Average time of only 52 hours for the whole year means average of 1 hour a week, seems a bit low to me. Certainly more than I do right now. Although if I didn't have to worry about bills I would probably volunteer full time.

Have you ever done volunteer work?

I don't quite get the 'despite economy' bit. I'd expect volunteering to rise in a bad economy - more people unemployed looking for experience, more part-time workers with time to spare, more organisations who can't afford to pay people and hence wanting volunteers.

I would expect volunteering to fall when the economy improves.

 

[Malak]

I don't quite get the 'despite economy' bit. I'd expect volunteering to rise in a bad economy - more people unemployed looking for experience, more part-time workers with time to spare, more organisations who can't afford to pay people and hence wanting volunteers.

I would expect volunteering to fall when the economy improves.

Possibly although your specific points I might argue with. Generally people don't do volunteer work for "experience," nor do they do it just because they have time to spare. I can see how some people might do it as a one time thing for a specific purpose, but who you might consider a typical volunteer generally works for a specific organization. Also, many corporations do volunteer programs with their employees to help the local community. Sports athletes have also been increasing their volunteer time.

I might argue that the economy itself had little to do with it. The increase was only like 1.25% anyway.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

How did they determine the number of volunteer hours? Polls? There's been more research lately into (I can't remember the term - some sort of bias.) - People being polled are biased toward answering what they think is more socially expected. For example, if you poll people about their church attendance, you typically get about a 40% have attended recently. But, if you attempt to figure out how many people went to church another way: counting all the people actually in attendance in an entire county, you suddenly discover that the 40% figure is very high.

Social desirability bias.

It is a big problem with social science research; the key is to not ask about the individual but use projective tests "how often do you think most people go to church" or allow for the bias "how often do you wish you went to church" and "how often do you get to attend church", another way around this is to ask about something that tells you how often they go to church but doesn't do so directly "please list the groups that you meet with on a weekly basis"; this can be, as you mentioned, cross checked against secondary data, such as church attendance.