The majority of Americans are ready to volunteer to help improve homeland security, according to Gallup.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush called on Americans to think of others and devote more time to serving their country. A Gallup poll showed that 80 percent of Americans who watched the speech were “both willing and able to heed the call.”
One month earlier, 60 percent of Americans said they had volunteered in the past year, Gallup reported. When asked if they donated money to charities, 86 percent of Americans responded that they had.
The best thing Bush may have done to inspire volunteerism was asking people to do it. Gallup noted that “one of the strongest drivers of volunteer participation is simply being asked to volunteer.”
A Gallup survey from January 2001 revealed that 72 percent of those who were asked by someone in their community to volunteer actually did so, while only 26 percent of volunteers were not asked outright.
