Washington, D.C. — As volunteers and community organizations across the country celebrate National Volunteer Week, the Corporation for National and Community Service and USA Freedom Corps today announced the launch of a new national study that will examine the capacity of America's nonprofit and community and faith-based organizations to use volunteers to meet important community needs such as child development, education, health care, hunger relief, senior care, protection of natural resources, and public safety.

The study will be conducted by the Urban Institute, which will survey more than 3,000 organizations across the country that address a variety of community needs and reflect a range of sizes and structures. The Urban Institute will report on its findings in the fall of 2003. This comprehensive nationwide survey will provide national service, nonprofit, and faith-based organizations across the country valuable insights on how they can engage more volunteers and use them better to carry out their respective missions. The study is being funded by a $300,000 donation from The UPS Foundation, and matching grant of $300,000 from the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The Urban Institute will survey organizations in order to:

• Evaluate the capacity of the nonprofit sector to use volunteers to offer community services, including the resources available to recruit, train, and manage volunteers.
• Measure the impact of volunteers on the ability of the nonprofit sector to deliver community services, and examine their potential to do more.
• Examine volunteer management practices and identify best practices and methods.
• Generate new data on the role of volunteers in community and faith-based organizations - a category typically overlooked in studies of America's voluntary sector.

"We know a lot about volunteers and why they serve, but not enough about organizations that use volunteers," said Corporation CEO Leslie Lenkowsky. "Now we have a chance to learn in a systematic way how and why charities enlist volunteers, and what those charities need in order to maximize their efforts. We are very grateful to the UPS Foundation for its generous support of this important work."

Lenkowsky noted that the study furthers two key national service goals - optimizing program design and increasing volunteer mobilization by national service grantees. Volunteer mobilization has always been a goal of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, and President George W. Bush has emphasized the role that participants in these federally-supported programs can play in recruiting and managing community volunteers. AmeriCorps members and Senior Corps volunteers serve up to 40 hours a week with thousands of national and local nonprofits, helping them deliver services and recruit, train and use volunteers. The 2003 grant guidelines for AmeriCorps and Senior Corps put greater emphasis on volunteer mobilization.

The new study will enhance the ability of the USA Freedom Corps to engage more Americans in volunteer service to their communities by strengthening the nonprofit sector they work with. In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush called on all Americans to dedicate at least 4,000 hours to service over the course of their lives, and he created the USA Freedom Corps to build a culture of service, responsibility, and citizenship in the United States.

"Achieving the President's vision of a nation of active citizens will require a large increase in the capacity of community-serving organization to use more volunteers well," said John Bridgeland, Director of the White House's USA Freedom Corps initiative. "This new research will provide invaluable information on how nonprofits can offer individuals high impact and high quality volunteer opportunities."

The USA Freedom Corps and the Corporation worked with the Bureau of Labor Statistics to develop the comprehensive survey of volunteer behavior released in December 2002. That survey established a new baseline for volunteer service activity among individuals age 16 and over living in the United States. The survey indicated that more than 59 million individuals, or 27.6 percent of Americans over the age of 16, volunteered with an organization such as a school, hospital, shelter or other nonprofit or faith-based organization between September 2001 and September 2002. The findings of that survey offer basic information on the supply side of volunteering, such as volunteer demographics, details on time spent volunteering, and the most prevalent types of volunteer work with organizations. The new capacity study announced today will complete our picture of volunteer service by shedding light on the demand for and use of volunteers by our nonprofit sector.

"Effective volunteers are a critical component of any successful nonprofit initiative," said Evern Cooper, president of The UPS Foundation and vice president of UPS corporate relations. "This study will enable us to better understand the management and administrative issues faced by the nonprofit community. We intend for the government and corporate sectors to use the survey results in a collective effort to help expand the capacity of our nonprofit partners."

Created in 1993, the Corporation for National and Community Service engages Americans of all ages and backgrounds in improving communities through service in Senior Corps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. The Corporation and its programs are part of USA Freedom Corps, a White House initiative to foster a culture of citizenship, service and responsibility, and help all Americans answer the President's Call to Service. For more information, visit www.nationalservice.org. For more information on the USA Freedom Corps or the USA Freedom Corps Volunteer Network, go to www.usafreedomcorps.gov or call 1-877-USA-CORPS.