Read the full 2026 report
Free access to all five chapters, every benchmark table and all 26 verified sources.
Benchmark report · 2026
The State of
Corporate Volunteering 2026
Corporate volunteering in 2026 is a benefit without a habit. Paid time off is now standard at large companies, and the latest figures, for 2024, put participation at 25% of employees. In the UK, where take-up is measured, about three quarters of granted days go unused, and only 18% of leaders track long-term impact. This report shows where your program stands, with every number verified against its source.
Published September 2026 · 36 verified sources · ~20-minute read
Participation
25%
of employees volunteer through their employer
Large companies · 2024
Paid volunteering days · UK
26%
of granted paid volunteering days are used (26.22%)
62% of employers offer them
Measurement · Civic 50, 2024
18%
of leading programs track long-term impact
92% offer skills-based volunteering
Data from
CECP
|
Points of Light
|
Deloitte
|
SHRM
|
Royal Voluntary Service
|
NCVO
|
DCMS
|
Freiwilligensurvey
|
Admical
|
ACCP
|
Taproot
|
KPMG
TL;DR
Key findings
1
Only a quarter of employees take part
At large companies, 25% of employees volunteered through their employer in 2024, and the rate falls as headcount rises.1 It runs from 31% under 10,000 employees to 16% over 100,000.1 The bigger the company, the harder it is to reach its people.
2
Paid days exist, but most go unused
In the UK, 62% of employers offer paid volunteering days, 2.3 days per employee a year on average, yet employees use only 26.22% of them.11 The benefit is in place, but the habit of using it is not.
3
Leading companies reach nearly double the median
The Civic 50, the 50 most community-minded US companies, average 41% participation against a US median of 23%.2 The gap between those two numbers shows how much most programs could still grow.
4
Skills-based volunteering is standard at the top
Among Civic 50 honorees, 92% offer skills-based or pro bono volunteering, where employees give professional skills rather than just time.2 That time carries a market value: Taproot prices one skilled hour at US$220, up 18% since 2019.10
5
Few programs measure their impact
Only 18% of Civic 50 honorees track the long-term impact of their volunteering, even though they are the sector's leaders.2 Investment in the systems behind volunteering is thin too: just 0.54% of corporate giving between 2016 and 2025 went to that infrastructure.24
6
Volunteering helps keep employees
Among US office professionals, 87% say volunteer opportunities affect whether they stay with or leave an employer.4 A randomized experiment found new hires given one day of volunteering during onboarding had lower turnover a year later.21
Chapter 1
The volunteering landscape in 2026
Two facts frame volunteering in 2026. The first is that paid time off to volunteer, often called VTO, has become a common benefit, offered by 65% of large companies.5 Among the Civic 50, the 50 most community-minded US companies, the share is 86%, up from 72% in 2019.2
The second is that participation remains low, holding steady at about a quarter of employees at large companies, and the biggest employers have the lowest rates.1,25 This chapter looks at the United States first, then at Europe country by country.
25%
average participation at large US companies
41%
participation among the Civic 50 leaders
62%
of UK employers offer paid volunteering days
36.7%
of people in Germany volunteer, down from 39.7% in 2019
United States: a common benefit, flat participation
Paid volunteering time is common at large companies but far from universal across the economy. Across all US employers, only 28% offered paid time off specifically for volunteering in 2024, although nearly half, 49%, offered some form of community volunteer program.3 The picture changes among large companies, where 65% offer volunteer time off,5 and among the Civic 50, where 86% do.2
Offering the benefit does not mean employees use it. Participation at large companies averaged 25% in 2024 and fell with size: companies under 10,000 employees reached 31%, while those over 100,000 employees reached only 16%.1 The Civic 50 show what the top of the range looks like, with an average participation rate of 41%. Their 460,000 employee volunteers gave 6.5 million hours, roughly 14 hours per participating employee.2
Europe: many paid days, fewer regular volunteers
The UK is the clearest case, because take-up is measured there. Of the 62% of employers that grant paid volunteering days, the average allowance is 2.3 days per employee a year, and only 26.22% of it is ever claimed.11 Access is narrower than it looks as well, since just 19% of companies with a program open it to all employees.11
The wider habit of volunteering is weakening as well. In England, 28% of adults volunteered formally at least once in 2024/25, where formal means unpaid help given through a group, club or organization.6 Only 17% did so monthly, however, down from 27% in 2013/14 and 23% in 2019/20.6
Germany volunteers less; France gives more time
Germany's national volunteering survey, run every five years, shows the same direction. In 2024, 36.7% of people aged 14 and over volunteered formally, about 27 million people, down from 39.7% in 2019.7
France tells a different story, because the share of companies involved has not moved while the time they give has grown sharply. Among donor companies, 16% practice mécénat de compétences, lending employees' skills and time to a nonprofit as a donation, the same share as in the previous barometer.8 Yet among those companies, the share granting six or more days a year jumped 35 percentage points, to 39%.8
UK
United Kingdom
In the UK the gap is in take-up, not policy. Employees use just 26.22% of the 2.3 days granted each year, and only 19% of programs are open to everyone.11 That unused time adds up to more than 140 million hours a year.11
Takeaway: most large companies already offer paid volunteering days, so offering them no longer sets your program apart. What sets you apart in 2026 is participation above 30%, comfortably clear of the 25% large-company average, backed by data that proves it. The rest of this report shows where the gaps usually open.
Chapter 2
Operations benchmarks: participation, hours, cost
Within that landscape, the numbers you control are participation, hours, staffing and cost. This chapter benchmarks each of them using three sources, and together they show where your program stands.
- CECP's company-level data. It gives the median, the middle company in the sample, plus the top quartile, meaning the best-performing 25% of companies.
- The Civic 50. It shows what the top performers in the US achieve.
- The UK employer survey. It shows how many of the granted volunteering days are actually used.
23%
median employee participation, CECP companies
1.8
hours per employee, the CECP median
41%
average participation among Civic 50 leaders
26%
of UK granted volunteering days used (26.22%)
The core numbers
Note: this table uses CECP's 2023 data, published in its 2024 edition and reported as the median company. Chapter 1 uses CECP's newer figures instead: 2024 data, published in the 2025 edition. Those are reported as the average company rather than the median, which is why they run about two percentage points higher. The two sets describe different years and different measures, so do not compare them directly.
Civic 50 leaders nearly double the median
Why the granted days go unused
Chapter 1 showed that UK employees use only about a quarter of the paid days they are granted,11 and the same data shows where the gap opens. Eligibility narrows the pool first: typically half the workforce qualifies, and only 19% of programs are open to everyone.11
The unused days have real value. For employees in professional and managerial roles, fully using the volunteering days they are granted each year would be worth an estimated £5,239 per person.11 For the UK economy as a whole, the opportunity is put at £32.5 billion.11
Closing that gap is an operations problem rather than a policy problem. In practice it comes down to three things.
- Opportunities. Employees need opportunities that are easy to find.
- Approval. Managers need to approve the time.
- A recording system. The company needs a system that records the hours once they are given.
Without that system, the hours that opportunities and approvals produce cannot be counted or reported.
KPMG UK shows what careful tracking looks like in practice. In its 2024 financial year, 43.8% of its full-time-equivalent staff volunteered during working hours.12 The firm can state that figure with confidence because it reconciles its timesheet entries against registered and approved activities, then cross-checks them against employee surveys.12
The wider infrastructure of volunteering attracts little funding, however. Between 2016 and 2025, corporate giving directed just 0.54% of its total to the systems and people that recruit and manage volunteers.24
Optimy customer
ABN AMRO Foundation runs a program with 6,000 employee volunteers a year, and the team moved it from Excel spreadsheets into Optimy. They now have real-time reporting on budget and participation, so when the board asks for numbers, the program already has them.
Takeaway: check your 2026 program against four things. Does it engage more than 30% of employees and reach everyone? Does it check hours against approved activities and show results on demand? The median program reaches a quarter of people and shuts out about half. Every yes puts you ahead of the sector.
Chapter 3
Measurement and formats: how programs are changing
The benchmarks in chapter 2 describe programs as they run today, yet the format of volunteering itself is changing underneath them. Programs are moving away from the company-wide day of service and toward activities that employees choose for themselves.
ACCP, the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, tracks the same shift. In the latest year it measured, self-directed opportunities, where the employee picks the activity, rose from 26% to 37% of company programs.14 Over the same period, in-person-only programs fell from 59% to 52%.14
37%
of programs are now self-directed, up from 26%
77%
of companies report rising participation
18%
of US formal volunteers now serve online
20.3%
drop in company-wide volunteer days
Reported participation is rising, but the average is not
More companies say participation is rising, yet the average rate is not moving. In 2024, 77% of companies surveyed by ACCP reported that more employees took part, up from 61% a year earlier,15 while CECP's average for large companies stayed near a quarter.1,25
Some of that activity happens in formats the average captures poorly, such as self-directed and online volunteering. Nearly one in five US formal volunteers, 18% of them, now serve an organization entirely or partly online.13 Company measurement has not kept pace with this shift. Even among the sector's leaders, only 18% of Civic 50 honorees track the long-term impact of what their employees do.2
What employees want and what companies count
Employees are clear about what they want from a program. Among US office professionals, 45% want to use their professional skills for community organizations.4 In the same survey, 42% name paid time off to volunteer among the most meaningful support an employer can offer.4 Those skills carry a market value that Taproot puts at US$220 an hour, a rate up 18% since 2019.10
Company-wide volunteer days are shrinking fastest
Yet CECP's 2025 data shows the traditional formats losing ground. Company-wide days of service fell 20.3% in the US, the steepest drop across the engagement formats in CECP's three-year comparison of the same companies.25
Volunteer time off, virtual volunteering and flexible scheduling were each offered by fewer of those companies over the same period.25 These figures track how many companies offer each format, not how much employees use it, and volunteer time off itself is still offered by 65% of large companies.5
Not all of that lost activity has disappeared, because some of it has moved elsewhere in the company. One place it has moved is employee resource groups, or ERGs, the employee-led groups built around a shared identity or interest, which 94% of companies now run.25 Where those groups organize their own volunteering, they do it locally, so the hours rarely reach the central program. That gap is worth closing before you add another channel.
Takeaway: volunteering is becoming more individual, more skills-based and more hybrid, meaning part online and part in person. That makes central tracking harder, and at the same time more necessary. If your hours sit in a dozen ERG spreadsheets, you cannot report participation, value the time at US$220 an hour, or prove impact.
Chapter 4
What changes in 2026: rules, retention and the habit
The scattered hours described in chapter 3 become a problem the moment someone outside the program asks for them, and two parties already do: tax authorities and auditors. Reporting on volunteering is rarely required by law, so the rules below are few, yet they matter for any European program in 2026. They also determine who else may ask to see your hour records.
Volunteering, though, is no longer only a compliance question. It was once a line in the corporate social responsibility (CSR) budget, and it is now part of how companies keep their people, the second shift this chapter tracks.
61%
fewer mandatory ESRS reporting datapoints
60%
French tax reduction for skills-based volunteering
87%
say volunteering affects whether they stay
75%
of GB volunteers say it improved their mental health
CSRD's net narrows, but not until 2027
Only France turns volunteering hours into a tax record
FR
France
Your hour records are a tax document, because the 60% reduction is calculated from them. Keep the activity, the approval and the salary basis for every hour, with that salary capped at three times the annual social security ceiling.16,17
UK
United Kingdom
With no statutory right to volunteering leave, every paid day is a company policy decision. The 62% of employers that grant days, 2.3 per employee a year on average, set that promise themselves.11 Your policy document is the only place an auditor can check it.
DE
Germany
Leave rights cover only honorary roles, such as volunteer firefighters and technical relief services. A German program therefore has to write its own leave rule into company policy.20
Employees say volunteering affects whether they stay
Among US office professionals, 87% say workplace volunteer opportunities affect whether they stay with or leave an employer.4 For 42% of them, paid time to volunteer ranks among the most meaningful support an employer can offer.4 Both figures describe what employees say, not what they actually do, so the next question is whether volunteering really changes their behavior.
A randomized experiment shows volunteering lowers turnover
One study gets closer to an answer, because it tracks what new hires did rather than what they said. A randomized field experiment at a large Latin American bank tested the effect directly.
New hires who took part in one day-long, company-sponsored volunteering activity during onboarding had lower turnover, measured almost a year later, than new hires who did not.21 Because the day was assigned at random, that difference can be attributed to the day itself.21
Purpose, well-being and a shrinking habit
Younger employees expect purpose from their work, and they act on it. Deloitte's 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey puts numbers on that expectation in its Swiss sample. There, 95% of Gen Z and 97% of Millennials say a sense of purpose matters to their job satisfaction and well-being.22 About half of each group, 48% of Gen Z and 51% of Millennials, has already turned down a job or an employer on ethical grounds.22
Volunteering is one of the ways employers meet that expectation, and it pays back in well-being. In Great Britain, 75% of recent volunteers say it improved their mental health.23 Satisfaction with the experience remains high at 92%, though it has slipped from 96% in 2019, which is a reminder that the quality of each activity still matters.23
Britain's habit is fading; the US is moving upward
The habit itself is fragile. A separate NCVO survey tells a similar story for Great Britain as a whole: monthly volunteering also stood at 23% in 2019/20, then fell further, to 16% by 2021/22.26 The DCMS figures in chapter 1 show the same decline for England through 2024/25.
The US has moved the other way, with its formal volunteering rate rising to 28% in 2023,24 while in the UK and Germany the general habit keeps weakening. That makes the workplace one of the few remaining places where someone is invited to volunteer for the first time. Your program is therefore recruiting people who would otherwise never start.
Takeaway: treat hours the way finance treats money: registered, approved and checked, since French tax rules and CSRD auditors may both ask for them. Then connect that data to retention, since a randomized trial found volunteering lowers new-hire turnover. Together, they make a stronger case for budget than a once-a-year count of hours.
Chapter 5
Benchmark yourself
The table below has nine rows and asks one question: does your program engage more people, track them better and prove more than the sector average? Every row cites data from the chapters above, so you can check the benchmark behind it. Give yourself one point for each row where you match or beat the benchmark, then read your score below.
A score of 7 or higher matches the sector's leaders
- Score 7 to 9. You are the benchmark, so the next step is to publish your participation and hours and connect them to your retention data. Few programs can do that, which makes your data worth sharing.
- Score 4 to 6. You have a solid core, so fix the two easiest gaps first: opening the program to every employee is one policy line, and checking hours against approved activities is a system setting, not a redesign.
- Score 0 to 3. Start with tracking, because you cannot raise participation you cannot measure. Putting opportunities, approvals and hours in one place gives you the data for every other row within a year.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the average employee volunteering participation rate?
How many volunteer hours per employee is typical?
How many companies offer paid volunteer time off?
Does volunteering improve employee retention?
How is skills-based volunteering treated for tax in France?
Do companies have to report volunteering under CSRD?
From sign-up to proof, with Optimy
Optimy brings volunteering opportunities, approvals, hours tracking and impact reporting together in one platform. Companies and foundations use it to raise participation and to report results to HR, the board and the auditor from the same data.
Methodology & sources
Every statistic in this report comes from the source named below, and we re-verified each one in September 2026, before publication. Where the data year differs from the publication year, we state the data year. We report figures as published, with no estimates and no gaps filled. Where a survey covers one country or one group, such as US office professionals or Civic 50 honorees, the text says so, and the charts use the cited figures only.
- CECP, Giving in Numbers: 2025 Edition, volunteering metrics (2024 data) · www.3blmedia.com/news/giving-numberstm-2025-edition-companies-aligning-business-practices-purpose-report-25-higher
- Points of Light, The Civic 50 2025 honorees and key insights (2024 data) · www.pointsoflight.org/press-releases/points-of-light-announces-2025-honorees-of-the-civic-50-and-releases-key-insights/
- SHRM, 2024 Employee Benefits Survey, community volunteering benefits · www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/position-community-volunteering-employee-benefit
- Deloitte, 2024 Volunteerism Survey (1,000 US office professionals) · www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deloitte-survey-workplace-volunteer-opportunities-can-unlock-a-greater-sense-of-connection-and-a-more-positive-work-experience-for-employees-302162157.html
- Points of Light, Volunteer Time Off Guide (citing CECP benchmarking data) · www.pointsoflight.org/press-releases/points-of-light-shares-volunteer-time-off-guide-for-social-impact-leaders/
- UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Community Life Survey 2024/25, volunteering and charitable giving · www.gov.uk/government/statistics/community-life-survey-202425-annual-publication/community-life-survey-202425-volunteering-and-charitable-giving
- Deutscher Freiwilligensurvey 2024 (German Federal Government; 27,000+ respondents) · www.deutsche-stiftung-engagement-und-ehrenamt.de/engagiertgeforscht/freiwilligensurvey-2024/
- Admical / French Ministry of Sports, Baromètre du mécénat d'entreprise 2024 (2023 tax data, IFOP survey) · www.sports.gouv.fr/les-chiffres-du-barometre-du-mecenat-d-entreprise-en-france-edition-2024-3154
- CECP, Giving in Numbers: 2024 Edition (2023 data) · cecp.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Giving-in-Numbers-2024.pdf
- Taproot Foundation, Pro Bono Valuation: 2024 Edition · taprootfoundation.org/tools/pro-bono-valuation/
- Royal Voluntary Service / Cebr, Untapped Impact (survey of 1,000 UK companies, 2024 data) · www.royalvoluntaryservice.org.uk/news/volunteering/employee-volunteering-the-untapped-325bn-opportunity-for-the-uk-economy/
- KPMG UK, Community Impact Report 2024 (published January 2025) · assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmgsites/uk/pdf/2025/01/uk-community-impact-report-2024.pdf
- US Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, Civic Engagement and Volunteering Supplement (2023 data, released November 2024) · www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/11/civic-engagement-and-volunteerism.html
- Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, volunteerism data release for GivingTuesday 2025 · accp.org/news/accp-news/volunteerism-data-for-givingtuesday-tuesday-december-2-2025/
- Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, 5th Annual CSR Insights Report (2024) · accp.org/news/accp-news/news-release-corporate-social-impact-association-survey-revealed-77-of-companies-reported-increased-workplace-volunteerism-in-2024/
- Compta-online, mécénat tax reduction rules for companies (2026) · www.compta-online.com/la-reduction-impot-mecenat-dans-les-entreprises-ao4118
- Agil Asso Konseil, mécénat de compétences tax framework 2026 · www.agil-asso-konseil.fr/mecenat-competences-cadre-fiscal-2026/
- Coolset, ESRS S1 requirements and the simplified ESRS datapoints (2025) · www.coolset.com/academy/esrs-s1-requirements-own-workforce
- Crowell & Moring, EU sustainability reporting revamp: key updates to the CSRD and CS3D from Omnibus I (2026) · www.crowell.com/en/insights/client-alerts/eu-sustainability-reporting-revamp-key-updates-to-the-csrd-and-the-cs3d-from-the-omnibus-i-directive
- Lets (joinlets.de), employer-supported volunteering leave in Germany (2025) · www.joinlets.de/en/social-impact-blog/freistellung-fur-das-ehrenamt-ein-uberblick-uber-rechte-und-regelungen
- Portocarrero and Burbano, Management Science Vol. 70 No. 9 (2024): field experiment on onboarding volunteering and turnover · pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/mnsc.2022.01517
- Deloitte Switzerland, 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey · www.deloitte.com/ch/en/issues/work/genz-millennial-survey.html
- NCVO, Time Well Spent 2023 (Great Britain) · www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/time-well-spent-2023/at-a-glance/
- Points of Light with The Bridgespan Group, From Nice to Necessary (2016-2025 giving data; published April 2025) · www.pointsoflight.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Points-of-Light-From-Nice-to-Necessary-Unleashing-the-Impact-of-Volunteering-Through-Transformative-Investment.pdf
- CECP, Giving in Numbers: 2025 Edition, employee engagement release (2024 data) · www.3blmedia.com/news/new-cecp-research-corporate-employee-engagement-programs-hit-participation-ceiling-return
- NCVO, Time Well Spent 2023, volunteer participation (2021/22 data) · www.ncvo.org.uk/news-and-insights/news-index/time-well-spent-2023/volunteer-participation/
About Optimy
Optimy is the platform companies and foundations use to run volunteering, grants and sponsorship programs, from application to reporting. ABN AMRO Foundation, featured in chapter 2, is an Optimy customer, and its figures come from the published Optimy customer story. optimy.com
© 2026 Optimy · You may quote this report with attribution ("Optimy, The State of Corporate Volunteering 2026") and a link to the source page.