Public Policy Research Works
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1619
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Item Inspiring Universal Voluntary Service Among American Youth(Do Good Institute, University of Maryland, 2019-02-21) Grimm, Robert T. Jr.Chairman Heck, Vice Chair Gearan, Vice Chair Wada, and distinguished members of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to you today as our country faces an urgent need to turnaround historic declines in service and overall civic life. Just a few months ago, our Do Good Institute released research emphasizing that the percentage of Americans volunteering and giving is at the lowest point in approximately fifteen years. These negative trends are widespread across our nation: 31 states have experienced a significant decline in volunteering since the post 9/11 years while not one state in our union has experienced a significant increase in volunteering over that time period. The importance of recognizing and addressing Americans' declining participation in their communities and country cannot be overstated. As the Director of the Do Good Institute and the Levenson Family Chair in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership in the School of Public Policy and at the University of Maryland, I have the honor of leading an effort that is countering these negative national trends by equipping and empowering a new generation of young people to apply their passions and ideas to transform our world for the better. We are working to create a new model for higher education called the Do Good Campus, with an ambitious goal of engaging all University of Maryland students from orientation to graduation and beyond in multiple, high quality service experiences that will lead them to do good and serve their country and world for a lifetime. After describing the troubling trends facing our nation and underscoring the importance of your work, I appreciate the opportunity to outline our experiences implementing the University of Maryland's Do Good Campus strategy, a model that could be adapted and replicated in schools and universities across the United States. I will close my testimony with policy ideas that could inspire a movement towards universal voluntary service in the United States.1 I had the great privilege of serving in the federal government from 2002 to 2010 and ultimately worked on many of the Commission's core policy issues as the Senior Counselor to the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) as well as its Director of Research and Policy Development during the administrations of President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. The federal government will need to play an important role in advancing new, innovative models of service to address our current challenges.Item Shifting Milestones, Fewer Donors and Volunteers: 21st Century Life for Young Adults and the Impact on Charitable Behaviors(Do Good Institute, University of Maryland, 2019-10) Dietz, Nathan; Grimm, Robert T. Jr.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The United States has experienced declines in adults’ rates of volunteering with organizations and charitable giving over the last two decades. Because these behaviors generate wide-ranging benefits for communities as well as the volunteers themselves, it is essential to figure out how to turn around these downward trends. First we need to better understand the societal factors driving these declines. Research on volunteering with organizations has frequently focused on the health benefits that older volunteers enjoy, and the positive effects of volunteering for children and adolescents. These studies fit into a larger literature on the benefits of prosocial behavior, which can include giving to charity and informal civic activities in addition to volunteering with an organization. However, with only a few recent exceptions, there are few empirical studies that address the question of why volunteering and giving rates have risen and fallen in recent years. This brief focuses on how the volunteering and giving rates of young adults (ages 22 through 35) are related to their life choices. Our study focuses on five milestones that have historically been associated with the transition to adulthood: completing formal higher education, getting a job, marrying, becoming a parent, and living independently. To address this question, we combine data featured in recent U.S. Census Bureau research, which found that Americans are reconceiving the idea of what it means to reach adulthood, with data collected from the Current Population Survey (CPS) Supplement on Volunteering (Volunteer Supplement). Every September between 2002 and 2015, the CPS Volunteer Supplement collected national statistics on volunteering through or for an organization. Starting in 2008, the Supplement also began collecting data on giving to charity.Item Where Are America's Volunteers?(Do Good Institute, University of Maryland, 2018-10) Dietz, Nathan; Grimm, Robert T. Jr.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: While the United States recently experienced record highs in total volunteer hours and charitable dollars given to community organizations, these seemingly positive numbers mask a troubling trend: fewer Americans are engaging in their community by volunteering and giving than in any time in the last two decades. The importance of recognizing and addressing this decline in American’s participation in their community cannot be overstated. Throughout the country, volunteers work with congregations, charities, and other nonprofit organizations to provide needed services of all types to people and communities. However, while people, communities, and organizations all rely on the work provided by volunteers, volunteering also generates indirect positive benefits for communities and for volunteers themselves. Given the decline of charitable behaviors among Americans and the importance of these behaviors for the well-being of individuals and communities, this brief analyzes data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) to explore – for the first time – how the recent national decline in American volunteering played out in all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) and 215 metro areas. Every September between 2002 and 2015, the CPS collected national statistics on volunteering through a supplemental survey. Among its many strengths, the CPS sample includes more than 55,000 households that generate reliable statistics for all states and most major metropolitan areas.Item Good Intentions, Gap in Action: The Challenge of Translating Youth's High Interest in Doing Good into Civic Engagement(Do Good Institute, University of Maryland, 2018-03) Grimm, Robert T. Jr.; Dietz, NathanEXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Volunteering has long been recognized as a primary mechanism for creating productive and active citizens. A large and diverse body of research describes how volunteering promotes beneficial outcomes for young people: volunteering enables youth to develop social connections and “soft skills” that smooth the transition to adulthood and encourage lifelong community engagement. Social institutions, such as family, religion, and schools, play important roles in the development of many young people by providing paths of entry into volunteering and other forms of community engagement. Our research has shown that teenagers have volunteered at much higher rates over the last two decades (2002-2015) than they did the mid-1970s and late 1980s. Moreover, according to research by the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) conducted over the last 51 years, the desire to do good is at an all-time high among entering college students. In 2016, HERI reported that record numbers of first-year college students felt “helping others in difficulty” and “becoming a comm unity leader” was an “essential” or “very important” personal objective. In this report, we analyze for the first time high school and college student data on actual student engagement taken from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is conducted monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. Each September between 2002 and 2015, the CPS included a supplemental survey on volunteering that collected data from a national sample of more than 55,000 households, with representative samples in every state and the District of Columbia.