Congregational volunteering is measured in several different ways: community service through a place of worship, participation in church activities, volunteering through a religious organization, and service reported over a recent year. The figures below cover U.S. adults and selected religious groups, with measurement periods ranging from 2007–2008 to 2025.
Contents
- U.S. monthly baseline
- Differences by religious tradition
- Weekly and monthly frequency
- Recent volunteering through religious organizations
- Hispanic congregational involvement
- Recent Catholic and Latter-day Saint measures
U.S. monthly baseline
The Pew Research Center’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant provides a broad U.S. baseline for 2007–2008. During that period, 19% of U.S. adults participated at least monthly in community or volunteer work through their place of worship. The measure is specifically about service connected to a worship place, rather than volunteering in every setting.
The same survey found that 37% of U.S. adults participated at least monthly in at least one activity at their church or house of worship beyond religious services. This broader measure includes more than community or volunteer work, so it should not be treated as an equivalent estimate of congregational volunteering. It does, however, show the difference between volunteering specifically and wider participation in worship-place activities.
Among Protestants, 24% participated at least monthly in community or volunteer work through their place of worship in 2007–2008. The survey reported 27% among adults in evangelical churches and 18% among adults in mainline churches. These are tradition-specific participation measures from the same period and survey, not current estimates.
The baseline also includes a frequency breakdown for U.S. adults. In 2007–2008, 11% did community volunteer work through their place of worship at least once a week, while 15% did so once or twice a month. Together, these categories describe the reported regular frequency groups in the source; they should not be expanded into an unsupported estimate for everyone who volunteered less often.
Differences by religious tradition
The 2007–2008 Pew Research Center survey recorded substantial differences across the religious traditions included in its measure of monthly community or volunteer work through a place of worship.
| Religious group | Participated at least monthly |
|---|---|
| Mormon adults | 54% |
| Jehovah’s Witness adults | 60% |
| Historically Black church adults | 33% |
| Protestants | 24% |
| Muslim adults | 24% |
| Orthodox adults | 19% |
| U.S. adults overall | 19% |
| Mainline church adults | 18% |
| Hindu adults | 18% |
| Religiously unaffiliated adults | 18% |
| Catholic adults | 16% |
| Jewish adults | 12% |
| Buddhist adults | 12% |
The highest reported shares in this table were 60% among Jehovah’s Witness adults and 54% among Mormon adults. Historically Black church adults were at 33%, followed by Protestants and Muslim adults at 24% each. Orthodox adults and U.S. adults overall were both reported at 19%.
The survey placed mainline church adults, Hindu adults, and adults in the religiously unaffiliated category at 18%. Catholic adults were at 16%, while Jewish adults and Buddhist adults were each at 12%. The religiously unaffiliated result is retained as reported by the source’s category; it does not describe volunteering through a worship place as a general practice outside the survey measure.
These percentages compare reported participation within each group during 2007–2008. They do not establish a trend over time, and the figures should not be combined with the 2016, 2023–2024, or 2025 measures below as if the questions and reference periods were identical.
Weekly and monthly frequency
The same Pew Research Center source gives more detail about how often adults reported community volunteer work through their place of worship in 2007–2008. For evangelical church adults, 12% did this at least once a week and 18% did it once or twice a month. For mainline church adults, the corresponding figures were 9% and 14%.
Historically Black church adults reported 17% at least once a week and 20% once or twice a month. Catholic adults reported 9% at least once a week and 11% once or twice a month. Mormon adults reported 21% at least once a week and 38% once or twice a month.
Jehovah’s Witness adults had the highest weekly figure supplied in this frequency set: 53% did community volunteer work through their place of worship at least once a week. A further 11% did so once or twice a month. Jewish adults had a reported weekly figure of 6%.
| Group | At least once a week | Once or twice a month |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. adults | 11% | 15% |
| Evangelical church adults | 12% | 18% |
| Mainline church adults | 9% | 14% |
| Historically Black church adults | 17% | 20% |
| Catholic adults | 9% | 11% |
| Mormon adults | 21% | 38% |
| Jehovah’s Witness adults | 53% | 11% |
| Jewish adults | 6% | Not supplied |
The pattern varies by group and by frequency. For example, the supplied figures for Jehovah’s Witness adults show a much larger weekly share than the once-or-twice-monthly share, while Mormon adults show sizable shares in both categories. The source does not provide a complete frequency pair for every group in this dataset, so missing cells are left unfilled.
Recent volunteering through religious organizations
Pew Research Center’s Religion in Everyday Life measured volunteering during the past seven days in 2016. In that survey, 33% of U.S. adults reported doing any volunteer work. Ten percent said they volunteered mainly through a church or other religious organization, while 22% volunteered during the past seven days but not mainly through a church or other religious organization.
Among Christian adults, 34% reported doing any volunteer work during the past seven days, and 12% reported volunteering mainly through a church or other religious organization. These figures use a one-week reference period, which differs from the monthly measures in the earlier survey and the annual measures reported later.
Religiosity was also associated with different reported levels in this 2016 source. Forty-five percent of highly religious adults reported doing any volunteer work during the past seven days, compared with 25% of adults who were not highly religious. For volunteering mainly through a church or other religious organization, the corresponding figures were 23% among highly religious adults and 5% among adults who were not highly religious.
The survey also reported that 59% of Mormon adults had done any volunteer work during the past seven days. That statistic is broader than volunteering mainly through a church or other religious organization, so it should be read as an any-volunteering measure rather than a direct replacement for the monthly place-of-worship measure.
Hispanic congregational involvement
Pew Research Center’s 2013 Chapter 3: Religious Commitment and Practice reports several measures for Hispanic adults who had ever attended worship services. Twenty-one percent were involved in their church or place of worship in a non-worship role. Eleven percent were members of a parish or church council, 9% led small groups or ministries, 8% taught Sunday school or other religious education, and 7% were Eucharistic or lay ministers.
The same source reported that 33% of Hispanic adults had volunteered with a church or religious group during the past 12 months. This annual measure is broader in time than the one-week figures from 2016 and different in wording from the monthly place-of-worship measures from 2007–2008.
Among churchgoing Hispanic evangelical Protestants, 42% reported involvement in church ministries. In the past 12 months, 65% of Hispanic evangelical Protestants reported volunteering with a church or religious group. The two figures describe related but different measures: ministry involvement and annual volunteering.
The role-specific figures also show that congregational participation can include governance, ministry leadership, education, and lay service. They should not be added together, because one person could have held more than one role and the supplied source does not indicate that the categories are mutually exclusive.
Recent Catholic and Latter-day Saint measures
More recent measures provide additional context, while retaining their distinct wording and dates. In 2025, Pew Research Center reported that 14% of U.S. Catholic adults said they volunteer at their parish. Sixteen percent said they participate in parish activities other than Mass at least several times a year, and 22% said they either volunteer or participate in activities other than Mass at their parish, or do both.
Among U.S. Catholics who attend Mass weekly, 51% said they either volunteer at their church or participate in activities other than Mass. This subgroup result is not directly comparable with the 14% estimate for all U.S. Catholic adults, because the attendance condition changes the population being measured and the 51% measure combines volunteering with other parish activities.
Pew Research Center’s 2023–2024 measure for Latter-day Saint adults found that 72% said they spent time volunteering during the past 12 months. The reported share was 91% among Latter-day Saint adults with a bachelor’s degree or more and 61% among those with less education than a bachelor’s degree.
The education breakdown describes volunteering during the past 12 months, not necessarily volunteering through a congregation. It is therefore best used alongside, rather than substituted for, the earlier place-of-worship statistics. Across the available measures, the clearest comparisons depend on keeping the reference period, population, question wording, and geographic scope visible.