Youth nonprofits connect young people with service, leadership and international exchange at substantial scale. In 2023, 24% of people aged 15–29 across 38 OECD countries said they had given time to an organisation during the previous month. Programmes measured by the OECD range from short projects to year-long placements, while UNICEF reported more than 12 million young volunteers taking action across its supported sectors in 2023.
Contents
- Youth volunteering across OECD countries
- How youth-service programmes are structured
- International exchange and programme reach
- Leadership development and training
- Inclusion and youth voice
- Participation gaps and measured outcomes
Youth volunteering across OECD countries
The OECD’s 2023 measure captures whether respondents gave time to an organisation during the previous month. Across 38 OECD countries, 24% of people aged 15–29 reported doing so. The comparable rate was 22% for people aged 30–49 and 22% for people aged 50 and older. These figures describe recent organisational volunteering, not every form of informal help or community participation. PROMOTING YOUTH VOLUNTEERING AND CIVIC SERVICE ENGAGEMENT, OECD, 2023.
Youth participation varied considerably by country. Israel recorded a 43% monthly organisational-volunteering rate among people aged 15–29, the highest named OECD result in the report. Luxembourg recorded 37%, and Switzerland recorded 36%. At the lower end of the named results, Iceland recorded 13%, Poland 11%, and Japan 7%; those lower figures are reported as 2023 or latest available in the OECD comparison.
| Country or group | Young people aged 15–29 volunteering monthly |
|---|---|
| OECD average across 38 countries | 24% |
| Israel | 43% |
| Luxembourg | 37% |
| Switzerland | 36% |
| Iceland | 13% |
| Poland | 11% |
| Japan | 7% |
The age comparison is not uniform across the OECD. Young people volunteered more than the total population in 22 OECD countries. In Türkiye, the youth volunteering rate was 1.7 times the total-population rate. In Japan, the corresponding youth rate was 0.4 times the total-population rate. These ratios show why a single international average should not be treated as a universal pattern for youth nonprofits.
For organisations focused on leadership and global exchange, the findings point to both reach and context. A youth programme may be operating in a country where young people are especially active in organisations, or in one where regular organisational volunteering is much less common. The figures measure participation, not the quality, duration or social impact of each volunteer experience.
How youth-service programmes are structured
Youth nonprofit infrastructure includes national volunteering and civic-service schemes as well as individual organisations. The OECD identified at least 16 member countries with a national youth-volunteering or civic-service programme, alongside the European Union programme. The mapping was updated through 2023 and covers programme structures rather than a complete census of every youth nonprofit.
Most mapped national programmes offered placements lasting between 6 and 12 months. The most common full-time commitment was 30–40 volunteer hours per week. This creates a distinct model from occasional volunteering: participants receive a defined placement, a substantial time commitment and, in many cases, training or financial support.
Programme design also includes shorter routes. AmeriCorps NCCC traditionally offered a 10-month placement, while additional summer positions lasted 8–10 weeks. In the Netherlands, the MDTshort scheme offered programmes of 30–50 hours, and each programme could receive a grant of up to EUR 50,000. These are programme descriptions and funding limits, not evidence that every participant completed the same number of hours or that every grant reached the maximum.
The Netherlands also illustrates how youth-service infrastructure can expand during a crisis. More than 10,000 young people took part in two ad hoc COVID-19 MDT projects since spring 2020. Around 70,000 young people participated in the municipal Youth on the Move project during the COVID-19 project period through reporting in 2023. The two figures refer to different projects and should not be added together as a single participant total. PROMOTING YOUTH VOLUNTEERING AND CIVIC SERVICE ENGAGEMENT, OECD, programme information updated through 2023 and described in the 2024 report.
International exchange and programme reach
International exchange is one part of the wider civic-service landscape. The European Solidarity Corps provided nearly 40,000 youth-volunteering opportunities from 2021 to 2023. People with fewer opportunities represented 35% of participants, while women represented 65%. The participation figures describe the programme population during that period; they do not establish that all opportunities were international or that all participants travelled abroad.
Other national programmes reached much larger cumulative or annual totals. Approximately 120,000 young people participated in Italy’s Universal Civil Service between 2019 and 2021. Canada delivered more than 40,000 youth service opportunities through the Canada Service Corps from its 2018 inception to the OECD’s 2024 publication. France provided civic-service placements to 144,000 young participants in 2022.
| Programme or country | Reported reach | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| European Solidarity Corps | Nearly 40,000 opportunities | 2021–2023 |
| Italy Universal Civil Service | Approximately 120,000 participants | 2019–2021 |
| Canada Service Corps | More than 40,000 opportunities | 2018–2024 report period |
| France Civic Service | 144,000 participants | 2022 |
| Luxembourg programme | 478 new full-time volunteers | 2021/22 school year |
Luxembourg recorded 478 new full-time volunteers during the 2021/22 school year. Across the programme descriptions reviewed by the OECD, only three programmes—Italy, Luxembourg and the European Union programme—offered young participants placements abroad. That limited count is specific to the programmes mapped in the report, not a claim that no other youth nonprofit supports international experiences.
Italy also reserved 10,019 Universal Civil Service placements for young people with fewer opportunities in 2023. This reservation indicates an inclusion mechanism within a large national service programme, while the separate European Solidarity Corps participation share gives a broader view of who took part. Reach and accessibility are related, but they are different measures.
Leadership development and training
Training turns a volunteer placement into a more intentional leadership-development experience. France’s Civic Service training offered young volunteers 34 civic-theme choices for its theoretical component. The French Civic Service Agency provided up to EUR 100 per volunteer for a host organisation’s theoretical civic training and reimbursed up to EUR 60 per volunteer for approved first-aid training.
Germany’s model specified different annual training requirements by age. Volunteers younger than 27 were required to receive 25 training days per year, while volunteers older than 27 were required to receive 12 days per year. German volunteer training also included a one-week political-education seminar in a state training centre. These requirements show how civic learning can be built into service rather than left entirely to the host organisation.
Italy’s Universal Civil Service required at least 80 hours of volunteer training. At least 30 hours covered general values, identity and active citizenship, and at least 50 hours covered project-specific knowledge, techniques and methods. The split connects broad civic identity with practical delivery skills: participants learn both why the service matters and how to carry out the assigned work.
The training figures are not interchangeable. A training day, an hour, a reimbursement ceiling and a choice of civic themes each measure a different programme feature. They also describe formal programme requirements or available support, not guaranteed learning outcomes for every participant. PROMOTING YOUTH VOLUNTEERING AND CIVIC SERVICE ENGAGEMENT, OECD, programme descriptions in the 2024 report.
Inclusion and youth voice
Youth nonprofits increasingly measure participation by more than headcount. Canada Service Corps projects were required to target at least 50% of total youth participants as Indigenous youth, underserved youth or both in the 2023 programme intake. The European Solidarity Corps reported that people with fewer opportunities made up 35% of participants from 2021 to 2023. These measures use different definitions and programme boundaries, so they should not be combined.
In a 2021 French evaluation, 74% of Civic Service volunteers who answered the question said they encountered people from different social backgrounds during their placement. The result applies to respondents who answered that evaluation question; it is not a measure of every Civic Service volunteer or a direct measure of long-term social cohesion. Pillar V – Trust of young people in government and public institutions: OECD Youth Policy Toolkit, OECD, 2021 evaluation.
UNICEF’s 2023 figures show youth engagement at a much broader advocacy and participation scale. UNICEF engaged 27.9 million children, adolescents and youth in advocacy and 36.6 million through online platforms. Its U-Report platform registered 6 million new members. UNICEF supported national system-building for adolescent and youth participation in 55 countries and consulted adolescents on country-programme milestones in 89 countries.
The organisation also reported more than 12 million young volunteers taking action across UNICEF-supported sectors in 2023. A UNICEF climate poll for COP28 received 770,000 responses from 59 platforms. These are engagement and response measures, not a count of independent youth nonprofits, and the online-platform, advocacy, volunteer and poll totals represent different activities. UNICEF Annual Report 2023, UNICEF, 2023.
Participation gaps and measured outcomes
Large programmes can coexist with substantial participation gaps. In Greece, 41% of young people reported no participation in any of eight measured social or civic activities during the previous 12 months. Among interviewed youth, 11% had participated in a youth organisation, club or NGO, compared with 8% across the EU comparison group. Participation in an organisation active on climate-change or environmental issues was 14% in Greece, compared with 12% across the EU comparison group. These findings come from a 2022 comparison and use the activities defined in that source. Child participation, UNICEF Greece, 2022.
Awareness is another measurable stage before participation. In France, 91% of surveyed 16–25-year-olds were aware of the Civic Service programme in September 2023, compared with 99% of surveyed parents of 16–25-year-olds. Awareness among young people and parents was therefore measured separately; neither percentage is a participation rate.
The perceived value of service can also be tracked. In a 2021 French recruiter survey, 76% considered Civic Service experience an asset on a young person’s résumé. That is an employer-side perception reported in a survey, not proof that service causes better employment outcomes.
Taken together, these statistics give youth nonprofits several distinct benchmarks: monthly organisational volunteering, placement reach, time commitment, training provision, inclusion targets, youth voice and awareness. They should remain separate when programmes are evaluated. A credible picture of leadership and global exchange depends on naming the geography, measurement period, population and outcome behind every percentage or participation total.