Americans Have Growing Interest in Charity Involvement, Polling Expert Says

By Elizabeth Schwinn

New polling data suggest that charities have an unprecedented opportunity to recruit new volunteers and new donors, according to the head of one of the nation’s biggest public-opinion research companies.

A majority of those surveyed last year by Yankelovich Partners, based in Norwalk, Conn., said they “feel a need to become more involved in community,” and three-quarters of them said “everybody should donate some time for volunteer work.”

The polling company’s president, J. Walker Smith, outlined the findings for about 200 people attending the American Marketing Association’s second annual conference for nonprofit groups, held here last month.

Mr. Smith noted that the majority also said it’s important to revive a sense of common culture and values, and said they want to do things that make them feel closer to others.

That means that charities have “a strong opportunity” to capture new volunteers, participants in events, and small donors, Mr. Smith said. The trick for a nonprofit will be marketing itself effectively to the people it wants to reach, he said.

“It’s not a question of just saying it’s for a good cause,” he said. “What charities should be saying is that they recognize people want to reconnect with each other, to get out of their shells, and that charities have a way to do that.”

The findings were based on interviews conducted during a door-to-door survey of 2,500 people. The sampling error is plus or minus two percentage points.

The shift in public opinion began at the height of the stock-market boom, Mr. Smith said, as people began rejecting what he called the “dot-com road warrior” work ethic — long hours on the job at the expense of family. The shift became more pronounced after the terrorist attacks, he said.

Beginning in 1999, surveys have shown that Americans are placing increasing importance on spending time with their families and building communities, and less on acquiring material goods.

Among the specific survey results:

• In 2002, 73 percent of Americans said integrity was more important than success, up from 58 percent in 1999.
• Compared with a decade earlier, more Americans said in 2002 that they measure success by whether they are satisfied with their lives, are in control of their lives, and have good marriages. Fewer said that they measure success by whether they travel for pleasure or have expensive jewelry or cars.
• Ninety-four percent of those surveyed said that “finding time for the important people in my life” is a current goal.

The new buzzword for the American way of life is “hiving,” Mr. Smith said. Rather than seeing the home as a cocoon, people are seeing it as a center from which they interact with a family or community, as “an embrace of others in a safe setting abuzz with activity and engagement.”

“People are looking for more meaning, not simply more stuff,” he said. “They are seeking the comfort of reconnection in their hives.”