What does this indicator measure?

This indicator is a measure of how people spend their time volunteering, and is provided for the Syracuse, Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester MSA’s (see notes below), as well as for New York State and the Nation.

Time volunteered was categorized into 13 different types of activities that people volunteered time doing.  Respondents may have answered that they volunteered time in more than one area, so totals will be more than 100% if summed.  An appropriate way to utilize this measure is to say “An average of X% of people responded that they volunteered time to X activity annually.”

Notes: There are two important things to note about this data.  First, the results are based on 3 year averages (2008-2010) of annual participation.  Three years data was collected, and then averaged out annually.  Second, the results are based on the Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA’s), NOT the cities listed or their respective counties.  An MSA is defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as a geographic entity that contains a core urban area population of 50,000 or more and includes the county where the core area is located and may include adjacent counties that have a high degree of societal and economic integration with that urban core. The Syracuse MSA is a 3,083 square-mile area which consists of Madison, Onondaga and Oswego counties.