The percentage of Americans who gave to charity in the past year has rebounded, but the percentage who volunteered has continued to decline, a Gallup poll finds.

A survey conducted in December 2021 of 811 adults nationwide found that 81 percent of respondents said they had donated money in the past year, up from 73 percent in April 2020 and nearly back to the 83 percent seen in 2017 and 2013. The giving rate among respondents with household incomes of at least $100,000 returned to the pre-pandemic level of 92 percent, after dipping to 87 percent in 2020, while rates among those earning less have been slightly slower to rebound. Giving rates among those earning between $40,000 and $99,999 went from 90 percent in 2017 to 78 percent in 2020 to 84 percent in 2021, while rates for those earning less than $40,000 went from 73 percent to 56 percent to 68 percent.

The percentage of respondents who reported volunteering time, however, fell to 56 percent in 2021, continuing a downward trend from 65 percent in 2013, 64 percent in 2017, and 58 percent in 2020. While the volunteering rate among higher-income respondents hardly changed between 2017 (76 percent) and 2020 (75 percent), it dropped to 68 percent in 2021. By comparison, rates among middle-income respondents dropped from 71 percent to 58 percent but held steady at 59 percent in 2021, while rates among lower-income respondents fell less precipitously, from 49 percent to 44 percent to 42 percent.

The survey also found that the percentage of respondents who gave to religious organizations, which fell from 52 percent in 2017 to 44 percent in 2020, had yet to recover. By contrast, the percentage of respondents who gave to other types of charities, which fell from 75 percent to 64 percent, had rebounded to 74 percent. The volunteering rate for religious organizations also continued to decline, from 44 percent in 2017 to 38 percent in 2020 to 35 percent in 2021, even as the rate for other charities, which fell from 50 percent to 43 percent, had recovered somewhat, to 47 percent.

“A recovery in volunteering may be...elusive as concerns about COVID-19 exposure and public health safety measures limit Americans’ willingness and ability to perform volunteer work,” the report’s authors note. “While there was hope earlier in 2021 that COVID-19 vaccines would allow Americans to return to their normal activities, the unpredictable nature of the virus and emergence of new variants has forced leaders and citizens to reconsider when — or if — the pandemic will end.”

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