Community leadership takes many forms: organized volunteer service, help exchanged between neighbors, participation in local decisions, and governance of nonprofit organizations. Recent U.S. data show a large potential leadership base, but also reveal gaps in continuity, representation, and community connection.
Contents
- Formal volunteering as a leadership pipeline
- Informal helping and neighbor-to-neighbor leadership
- Organizational membership and civic voice
- Virtual and hybrid pathways
- Representation in nonprofit leadership
- Board effectiveness and community trust
Formal volunteering as a leadership pipeline
Between September 2022 and September 2023, an estimated 75.7 million U.S. residents age 16 and older formally volunteered through an organization. That represented 28.3% of this population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, in the period September 2022–September 2023.
The formal-volunteering rate was 23.2% in 2021. By 2023, it had risen 5.1 percentage points, a 22.1% growth rate from 2021 to 2023. Even after that increase, the 2023 rate remained 1.7 percentage points below the pre-pandemic level. These figures describe participation in organizations; they do not measure every form of community leadership.
The scale of service was substantial. Formal volunteers contributed an estimated 4.99 billion hours in the United States during the 12 months ending in September 2023. The estimated economic value of that service exceeded $167.2 billion. At the individual level, however, service intensity was lower than in earlier measurements: average hours per formal volunteer fell to 70 hours in 2023 from 96.5 hours in 2017, while the median fell to 24 hours from 40 hours.
North Carolina’s earlier trend shows the importance of tracking participation by place and year. The state’s formal-volunteering rate was 35% in 2017, 30% in 2019, and 23% in 2021. The AmeriCorps Volunteer Generation Fund evaluation also estimated that North Carolina formal volunteering contributed 139.5 million service hours in 2021, with an estimated economic value of $3.9 billion.
Informal helping and neighbor-to-neighbor leadership
Community leadership does not require an organizational role. Between September 2022 and September 2023, an estimated 54.2% of Americans helped or exchanged favors with neighbors. That was higher than the 51.7% informal-helping rate recorded in 2019. About 137.5 million Americans helped neighbors informally during the later period, and about one in 10 engaged in this kind of helping a few times per week or more.
The national figures point to a broad base of everyday leadership. Neighbor-to-neighbor support reaches people who may never join a formal organization, serve on a board, or appear in a volunteer registry. The measurement is still specific: it concerns helping or exchanging favors with neighbors, rather than a general estimate of all unpaid community activity.
North Carolina’s informal-helping rate was 54% in 2017, 49% in 2019, and 48% in 2021, according to the AmeriCorps evaluation. The state series and the national estimates use different measurement periods, so they should be read as context rather than as a single continuous local trend.
Organizational membership and civic voice
Community leadership also appears in public participation. Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults reported voting in the last local elections in both the 2018 and 2022 midterm cycles. In the 2022 midterm cycle, that 53% represented about 123.4 million voters, according to Volunteering and Civic Life in America: Research Summary 2024.
Other forms of civic voice were less common but still involved millions of adults between September 2022 and September 2023:
| Civic activity | Share of U.S. adults | Estimated people |
|---|---|---|
| Donated more than $25 to a political organization, party, or campaign | 7% | 17.7 million |
| Contacted or visited a public official | 9% | 21.9 million |
| Attended a public meeting about a local issue | 9% | More than 23.8 million |
The share donating more than $25 was 8% in 2019. Among adults who contacted or visited a public official during the 2022–2023 period, 83% also voted in the last local election. That overlap suggests that some civic activities cluster among people already participating in public life; the figures do not establish that one activity caused another.
In North Carolina, 25% of residents belonged to an organization in 2021. The state’s formal-volunteering rate was 23% that year, equal to the national rate reported for the same survey year. Membership and volunteering are related pathways, but neither statistic identifies how many participants later assume a formal leadership role.
Virtual and hybrid pathways
Online access has become part of the community leadership landscape. In 2023, 18% of U.S. formal volunteers served completely or partially online. That represented more than 13.4 million formal volunteers whose service included at least some online activities, according to the Census Bureau and AmeriCorps research.
Virtual and hybrid service also differed in reported time commitment. These volunteers averaged 95 service hours per year in 2023, compared with 64 hours for volunteers serving only in person. Six in 10 virtual and hybrid volunteers were younger than 55, and 10% reported having a disability.
The pathway was associated with organizational connection as well. Seventy-four percent of virtual and hybrid volunteers reported organizational membership in 2023, compared with 55% of volunteers serving only in person. These estimates describe participation patterns, not the quality or community impact of the service. They nevertheless show why online and hybrid options can matter when organizations are designing entry points for prospective leaders.
Representation in nonprofit leadership
Leadership access is not only about the number of volunteers. It is also about whether decision-making bodies reflect the communities they serve. In a 2019 BoardSource survey, only 38% of nonprofit chief executives said their boards represented the communities served. Only 29% of board chairs gave that answer. Conversely, 62% of chief executives and 71% of board chairs said their boards did not reflect the demographics of the populations served.
The BoardSource Leading with Intent DEI report described the racial composition of boards in that 2019 survey. Nineteen percent were all-white, while 63% were majority-white with 1% to 39% people of color. Fourteen percent were racially diverse with 40% to 99% people of color, and 4% were composed entirely of people of color.
White people accounted for 87% of chief executives, 83% of board chairs, and 78% of board members in the sample. Women accounted for 74% of chief executives and 53% of both board chairs and board members. Black people accounted for 10% of board members and 5% of chief executives. Hispanic or Latino people accounted for 5% of both board members and board chairs.
These are findings from a 2019 survey reported by BoardSource, not current population estimates and not a claim that every nonprofit has the same composition. They provide a baseline for discussing representation and leadership pathways with the measurement year visible.
Board effectiveness and community trust
Board composition connects directly to trust and organizational performance. In the 2019 BoardSource survey, 49% of nonprofit chief executives said they did not have the right board members to establish trust with the communities served. Only 32% of nonprofit boards placed a high priority on knowledge of the community served when recruiting board members. Meanwhile, 98% rated passion for the mission as a high or medium recruitment priority, 90% rated desired skills or professional occupation that highly, and 88% rated reputation or networks within the community that highly.
The same BoardSource Index of Nonprofit Board Practices found that 67% of nonprofit executives said their boards spent too little time building relationships in the community that support and inform organizational work. Recruitment and relationship-building therefore measured differently: professional skills and mission commitment were common priorities, while community knowledge and time in the community were less consistently emphasized.
Leadership continuity also presented practical constraints. Thirty-two percent of nonprofit chief executives and 53% of board chairs reported difficulty finding people to serve on their boards. Even so, 84% of nonprofit boards reported regular meeting attendance above 75%, and 28% reported attendance of 90% or more. Forty-one percent sent meeting materials a week or more before meetings.
Board role clarity was associated with a large difference in reported organizational impact. Among nonprofit executives, 91% reported a positive organizational impact when boards had a strong understanding of their roles and responsibilities, compared with 33% when that understanding was weak. One percent reported a negative impact when understanding was strong, compared with 34% when it was weak.
Finally, 52% of nonprofit organizations reported that board members were actively involved in advocating for their missions in the BoardSource survey’s 2017 measurement. That year differs from the 2019 findings above, so it should not be treated as a direct update. Together, the measures show several distinct dimensions of community leadership: entering through service, participating in public life, representing residents in governance, building trust, and sustaining effective board practice.