Giving and volunteering as distinct forms of civic engagement: The role of community integration and personal resources in formal helping

Despite the debate over the value of giving versus volunteering and the implications that they may be connected to public 1 e in distinct ways, there is little work that compares how factors related to civic engagement may encourage greater volunteering and greater charitable giving in different ways. Moreover, there is a need for a theoretical framework to understand why these helping behaviors relate differently to civic engagement when placed in the context of social ties and community participation. Using data from The Survey of Giving and Volunteering in the United States, the author finds that greater volunteering is most strongly promoted by community ties and increased giving is best explained by personal resources and helping values. As a result, the author argues that giving and volunteering represent distinct means of engagement and the potential substitution of money for time informal helping has important implications for the civic life.