Illinois is ranked 35th nationally in the amount of volunteers and time spent volunteering, according to the report America’s Civic Health Index by the National Conference on Citizenship.

In 2008 Illinois saw its volunteering rate drop below the national average for the first time in six years.

Nationally, in 2008 26.4 percent of Americans volunteer their time, while 24.8 percent of Illinoisans spent time volunteering. An estimated 2.5 million Illinois residents volunteered time in 2008, a decline of approximately 500,000 people in one year. They also spent a total of 279 hours volunteering, a 22 percent decrease since 2003. In essence, fewer residents are volunteering, and of those who are volunteering are spending less time doing so.

And while time spent working with neighbors and attending meetings by individuals in Illinois falls under the national average as well, the total percent has increased from 2007 to 2008. Of Illinois residents, 7.1 percent worked with neighbors; below the national average of 8.5 percent in 2008. This is an increase of 5 percent of Illinois residents working with neighbors in 2007. And while only 6.9 percent of Illinois residents attended meetings in 2007, 8.3 percent attended meetings in 2008; below the national average of 9.6 percent.

The report suggests that the reason for such a decline and small percentage of volunteers could be directly related to political scandals. With the state sitting with a $9 million budget deficit and a governor on trial for criminal charges, the idea may

be on target.

One solution the report suggests to combat the lack of civic involvement is to improve civic education. They cite the Civic Blueprint for Illinois High Schools, a project developed by the McCormick Freedom Project and the Illinois Civic Mission Coalition, as a program that could build a foundation for Illinois students’ civic mindset. The program asks teachers and principles to conduct “civic audits” to evaluate how well their school integrates civics across six principles.

The civic blueprint principles are:

• Formal instruction in U.S. government, history, law and democracy
• Discussion of current local national and global current events
• Service learning
• Civics-oriented extracurricular activities
• Giving students “authentic voice” in school governance
• Participation in simulations of democratic structures and processes

Yet even with the amount of data that supports the idea of Illinois residents are losing confidence in civic activities, it found a large percentage of residents are willing to become more engaged if given incentives. Seventy-five of Illinois residents surveyed said they support a policy that would require all high school students to become involved in community service. Eighty-nine percent of Illinois residents surveyed said they would support a policy that would give tuition assistance to those who volunteered. And while only 24.8 percent of Illinois residents volunteered in 2008, 38 percent of those surveyed said they would volunteer more to help overcome the state’s current difficulties.

Published by the National Conference on Citizenship in partnership with the Civic Indicators Working Group, the Illinois section of the report shows the responses of 516 individuals. Each individual from Illinois was chosen at random and completed an online survey.

Download the full report here.