A new poll finds young volunteers embrace informal, everyday acts of service. So do some nonprofits

NEW YORK (AP) — Questions about younger generations’ community service habits abound for nonprofits, which are contending with an aging volunteer base whose participation levels are still rebounding from pandemic drop-offs.

There are some signs, however, that young people are giving back — though their charitable works might happen less formally and more sporadically.

About 8 in 10 of 12- to 25-year-olds have engaged some form of community service or volunteering, according to a new survey by The Allstate Foundation and Gallup.

Among young people who volunteer, about two-thirds said that helping others or making a difference was “a major reason” for their volunteering. About 6 in 10 said that a top reason was the ability to contribute to their community, and roughly half said that about supporting a cause they were passionate about.

“When we typically think of service it can be very narrow. Of, like, kids picking up litter or engaging in food drives,” said Zoë Jenkins, 22, who oversees recruitment for a youth engagement nonprofit called Civics Unplugged. “That all definitely counts as service. But I think for me, how I think about it is just people helping other people. And that’s, I think, a really broad bucket.”

These attitudes have prompted some youth-facing philanthropies to rethink volunteerism for rising generations, who often express a desire for in-person connections and impact but tend to struggle with finding out about service opportunities and fitting them into their routines. About half of respondents who report never volunteering told Gallup that not knowing where to find opportunities and a lack of time had prevented them from service.

Acts of kindness and donations prove popular

Generations Z, born roughly between 1997 to 2012, and Alpha, approximately 2012 to 2024, appear to serve their communities in ways that don’t involve the nonprofit structure.

About 7 in 10 of 12- to 25-year-olds said they’ve helped someone at least “a few times” in the past week with a task — a sign to Allstate Foundation officials that young people view service more generally, not as an extracurricular but an ingrained part of daily life.

Only about 1 in 10 young people who had volunteered said their service activities were all required, such as through school or a club. About half said some of their service was required — but not all — and roughly 4 in 10 said none of their volunteer activities were mandated.

Greg Weatherford II, who leads youth empowerment initiatives as the Director of The Allstate Foundation and Social Impact, said they try not to elevate any one type of service as most valuable. He emphasized that service can be accomplished in different lengths of time from a 5-minute interaction to a half-day project.

“We so applaud the young people that build complex nonprofits that solve complex issues,” he said. “Equally important is the young person that’s taking time to write a letter to a classmate who may just be needing to have some extra encouragement as they get ready to take their school test or just navigate a new semester.”

The most common form of service for young people involves giving, according to the Gallup poll. About half said they donate or organize donations for food, clothing or other items, underscoring the importance of accessibility for The Allstate Foundation Youth Empowerment Program Senior Manager Alex Quian.

Rallying contributions doesn’t require transportation or complex scheduling, Quian noted, unlike many service opportunities. Peers can initiate such donation drives quickly and often with each other, especially through social media. About 3 in 10 young adults who volunteer said they had fundraised for a cause, and roughly 2 in 10 had raised awareness for a cause.

Jenkins said it’s great to see young people considering their resources and ability to mobilize others behind a cause.

“Young people are perhaps more aware than ever of the power of money,” she explained.

An emphasis on youth leadership

About half of young people said their service experiences allowed them to make choices, assist with planning, or help lead at least “sometimes,” according to the Gallup analysis. The Allstate Foundation aims to increase that figure by directing more funding toward the development of youth-led volunteer opportunities.

Gallup found that when young people do lead it is most often by choosing their service activities. They are less frequently given the chance to help decide how service will be accomplished, set goals, take charge of an activity or plan the experience.

Jenkins said that younger volunteers are typically restricted to highway litter pickups and canned food drives. She suggested that nonprofits offer more developmentally appropriate activities, noting that service opportunities fit for five-year-olds differ greatly from those fit for 20-year-olds.

Storytelling is one form of service that Jenkins suggested for Gen Z volunteers on the older end of the age range. The National Organization for Victim Advocacy and the Sexual Assault Youth Support Network are examples of nonprofits that she said enable young people to advocate for their causes as part of their service.

“It’s not that young people don’t care,” Jenkins said. “We’re not necessarily providing the right opportunities that actually let young people feel like they’re showing up as their full selves.”

Tailored, self-managed opportunities with the American Red Cross

One of the country’s largest disaster relief organizations has seen a youth volunteering surge following the pandemic.

American Red Cross officials reported a 25% increase in Gen Z volunteers, its fastest growing and largest age group, from 2024 to 2025. Matt Bertram, the nonprofit’s vice president of volunteer services, attributed the rise to greater participation among their more than 1400 self-run youth clubs.

Often housed in high schools, these clubs allow students themselves to manage the ways they engage with the American Red Cross. Bertram said these are not “one-size-fits-all” groups. The nonprofit hopes to get more youth on board with its overall mission by allowing clubs the flexibility to do as many or as few activities as possible. That includes community education and preparedness training, blood drives, international humanitarian law campaigns, as well as fundraisers for measles and rubella.

The American Red Cross communicates these opportunities through emails and texts because young people told them they wanted more messaging through those channels. Bertram said they are also lowering the barrier to entry by permitting underage applicants to directly trigger parental consent requests when they sign up to volunteer.

The made-to-measure approach recognizes that volunteers’ motivations change over time. Bertram acknowledged that not everyone joins the Red Cross to do weekly service for several years. Commitments change as high schoolers transition into college or early-career professionals settle down.

By building out short-term volunteer opportunities and project-based service, Bertram said, nonprofits can meet individuals’ ever-evolving capacities.

“There’s lots of folks who want to do traditional volunteering. There’s lots of folks who want to do a one-time project. And there’s lots of folks who want to maybe do something through a club or school or through their service organization,” he said. “If we can continue to work hard to put all those people together, that’s how we’ll build that workforce of the future.”

___

Linley Sanders contributed reporting from Washington.

___

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

——-

The Gallup poll was conducted Nov. 17-Dec. 1, 2025 among 3,013 U.S. youth and young adults ages 12-25, using samples drawn from Gallup’s probability-based panel. The margin of sampling error for youth and young adults overall is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.