On Monday we discussed how Points of Light was going to go into detail about social trends occurring in the U.S. Today we will highlight the role of faith based organizations in society and how they impact volunteering.

Not surprisingly, service to others is a tenet that has shaped and continues to shape the core operations of most faith-based institutions.  They produce significant impact on volunteering and the types of volunteer activities that are performed.

The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey shows that 82% of Americans rank religion as important in their lives. The Urban Institute released a study stating volunteering through a faith-based institution is the most popular form of volunteering, with 35.9 % of America’s volunteers reporting that their main service organization was faith-based.  Additionally from the Corporation’s “Research Brief: Volunteering in America’s Faith-based Organizations” brief, released July, 2009, faith-based organizations reported the highest rate of volunteer retention (70%) among any type of organization.

Here are the key Findings of our organization wide faith trend research:

• Four in ten Americans say they attend religious services at least once per week (source)
• The U.S. is an overwhelmingly Christian society (78.4%) (source)
• Older Americans are more religious than younger Americans (source)
• Approximately 85% of congregations report involvement in programs of cash/voucher relief for those in need and in programs of feeding. (source)
• Blacks appear to be more likely to volunteer with religious organizations than either whites, Asians or Latinos (source)
• Teens who practice religion are more likely to volunteer (source)

Based on the key information we collected this raises a larger question about how secular volunteer programs can partner with faith based programs to increase retention rate and create a larger community of volunteers?

We speculate that since the faith based organization already pulls from a strong community that secular organizations partnering with them will create a larger, stronger, and more diverse new community of volunteers. The “Volunteering In America’s Faith Based Organizations” Research Brief in 2009 it even states that nonprofits that partner profit more.  Why are there not a large number of partnerships between secular and faith based organizations?  Is there also a negative side to the partnership?