The Better Impact Report · 2026

State of
Volunteer Growth.
Growth is happening.

A twelve-month measurement of 3,949 established volunteer organizations across the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. Drawn from daily active-volunteer counts on Volunteer Impact. The full picture, not just the wins.

87% Grew or held steady

2.5M Active volunteers

+12.9% Arts & Culture

What's inside

Four findings that reframe the year.

We built this study because the field has never had a shared, data-backed view of how volunteer programs actually grow, contract, or hold steady over time. Here's what the data showed.

Among organizations that grew, the average expansion was +31%. The median was +28%, meaning growth was broadly distributed, not driven by outliers.

Growth is the norm.

More than a third of organizations grew meaningfully. Nearly half held steady. In a sector where the assumption is decline, that's a finding worth publishing.

The growth engine.

A top cohort of 395 organizations added 189,227 volunteers in twelve months. Same platforms, similar missions, different outcomes. That's replicable.

+0%

The quiet story.

Arts and culture grew more than three times the rate of healthcare. It's the fastest-moving segment in our dataset, and almost no one is talking about it.

The honest number.

518 organizations contracted. We publish the losses alongside the growth. The full picture, not just the wins.

For the last twelve months, the question I've been trying to answer is a simple one: what's actually happening to volunteer programs right now? I couldn't find the answer anywhere. So we built it ourselves.

Houston Goodwin · CEO, Better Impact

Study population

3,949

Established volunteer organizations running on Volunteer Impact.

Active volunteers

2.5M

Measured daily across the full twelve-month window.

Window

12 months

April 2025 through April 2026. Daily cadence.

Scope

4 countries

United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia.