The most comprehensive research on U.S. volunteering ever assembled shows volunteering in America is strong and poised for growth. As momentum for service grows across the sectors, the need for volunteers is heightened by the economic downturn.

Nearly 61 million Americans volunteered in their communities last year, giving 8.1 billion hours of service worth more than $158 billion to America’s communities, according to the Volunteering in America report released today by the The report reveals an increase of one million volunteers over five years, as Americans answer President Bush’s 2002 national call to service.

The Volunteering in America report contains six years of data on volunteering, rankings of states and cities, and volunteer trends and demographic information for every state and 162 large and mid-sized cities at a new interactive website www.VolunteeringInAmerica.gov.

The research comes at a time of growing economic pressures and unprecedented opportunity for America’s volunteer sector. Cross-sector support for service has never been stronger, as corporations expand social responsibility programs, colleges adopt service-learning, and political leaders from both parties embrace citizen service.

Baby Boomers will double the number of older American volunteers in the coming decades and young people are volunteering at higher rates than the last generation. "We have an unprecedented opportunity to seize this moment and usher in a new era of service in America," said David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation. "By giving us a look under the hood of U.S. volunteering, this research shows what we need to do to recruit and retain tomorrow’s volunteers."

Volunteering in U.S., States and Cities

On the national level, 60.8 million or 26.2 percent of Americans age 16 and older volunteered through organizations in 2007. After a 6 percent decline in total volunteers between 2005 and 2006, volunteering levels stabilized in 2007. There were one million more volunteers in 2007 than 2002.

In the first-ever look at volunteering in 75 mid-sized cities, Provo, Utah, led the nation with a whopping 63.8 percent volunteer rate, followed by Iowa City, Iowa, Madison, Wis., Greenville, S.C. and Ogden, Utah. For the third year in a row Utah was the top volunteer state with a volunteer rate of 43.9 percent, followed by Nebraska, Minnesota, Alaska and Montana. Minneapolis-St. Paul once again ranked number one among large cities at 39.3 percent, with Salt Lake City, Portland, Oregon, Seattle and Austin rounding out the top five.

"Government at all levels is more effective when it partners with community groups and citizens to solve problems," said Stephen Goldsmith, former mayor of Indianapolis and