What are volunteering communities?

Communities for people seeking volunteer opportunities and sharing the experience of giving back. Facebook groups help find volunteer placements internationally, Discord-based communities combine peer support with volunteer coordination, and humanitarian organizations connect emergency response volunteers.

Where do most volunteering communities live?

Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (39% of 18 listings).

Are most of these communities free?

94% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.

How big is a typical volunteering community?

Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.7M members and the median is 27K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.

What do these communities usually include?

Forum is the most common (78%). Others that show up often include live chat and newsletter.

How does Hive Index collect this data?

Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.

Where can I see the full list?

The full directory is on Hive Index's Volunteering topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.

Volunteering Communities Report: Stats, Platforms,...

Executive Summary

We analyzed 18 volunteering communities listed on Hive Index to understand where people gather, what these groups offer, and which communities attract the most interest.

The big picture: volunteering communities are broad and fragmented, with many small groups and a few very large outliers.

Source: Hive Index community database · Updated 2026-05-17

Browse all Volunteering communities Know a community we're missing? Add it

Communities: 18
Platforms: 8
Avg members: 1.7M
Median members: 27K

Where Volunteering Communities Are Hosted

Independent Platforms
7(39%)
Reddit
2(11%)
Discord
2(11%)
LinkedIn
2(11%)
Facebook
2(11%)
Quora
1(6%)
Slack
1(6%)
Telegram
1(6%)

Format mix

Forum / feed-based
12(67%)
Chat communities
4(22%)
Other platforms
2(11%)

Forum / feed-based is most common (67%), but chat communities is also well represented (22%).

Independent Platforms leads, but Reddit and Discord also represent meaningful shares.

Audience Size & Access

Community size

Tiny
<20 members
0(0%)
Small
20-100 members
1(6%)
Medium
100-1,000 members
1(6%)
Large
1,000-10,000 members
1(6%)
Huge
10,000-100,000 members
7(39%)
Massive
100,000-1M members
0(0%)
Gigantic
1M+ members
3(17%)

5 communities have unknown member counts.

Free vs paid

The average is much higher than the median (1.7M vs 27K), which usually means a few large groups are pulling the average up.

How Volunteering Differs From Other Categories

Volunteering is more free-to-join, and more platform-diverse, compared with typical Hive Index topics.

Metric	Volunteering	Hive Index average
Free to join	94%	85%
Median members	27K	25K
Average members	1.7M	669K
Paid or apply-to-join	6%	15%
Live chat	28%	38%
Discord share	11%	16%

Feature Mix

Common features appear in at least 15% of listings.

Common Features

Forum
78%
Live Chat
28%
Newsletter
22%

Niche Features

Paid Community
6%

Forum appears on 78% of listings.

What Visitors Click

Outbound clicks / mo: 24

Platform supply vs. clicks

Platform	Communities	Share of communities	Outbound clicks	Share of clicks
Independent Platforms	7	39%	2	11%
Reddit	2	11%	2	11%
Discord	2	11%	5	26%
Facebook	2	11%	9	47%
Telegram	1	6%	1	5%

Share is calculated within this topic.

Facebook gets 47% of clicks but only 11% of listings, so visitors click it more than you'd expect from supply alone.

Most-clicked formats

Forum / feed-based
13(68%)
Chat communities
6(32%)

Most-clicked features

Forum
13(68%)
Live Chat
6(32%)

Most-clicked size ranges

Huge
16(84%)
Gigantic
2(11%)
Small
1(5%)

Top-clicked listings

Volunteer Abroad For Free
9(47%)
Homework Central
5(26%)
r/volunteer
2(11%)

Most clicks go to forum / feed-based and chat communities communities.

Trends

Founded year

1995

1998

2009

15 communities have no founding year on file.

Most listed groups were founded around 1995.

Methodology & FAQ

Methodology

This report uses communities in the Hive Index database tagged as Volunteering. We exclude removed or suppressed listings. Member counts, traffic, features, reviews, and ratings may vary by source and are updated periodically.

•This is a smaller slice of Hive Index's database, so read trends as directional.
•Last updated 2026-05-17

FAQ

: Communities for people seeking volunteer opportunities and sharing the experience of giving back. Facebook groups help find volunteer placements internationally, Discord-based communities combine peer support with volunteer coordination, and humanitarian organizations connect emergency response volunteers.
: Independent Platforms is the most common platform in this report (39% of 18 listings).
: 94% are free to join. The rest require payment, an application, or both.
: Among listings with public size data, the average is 1.7M members and the median is 27K. The median is usually the better signal for a typical group because a few large ones inflate the average.
: Forum is the most common (78%). Others that show up often include live chat and newsletter.
: Listings are submitted by community builders and researchers, reviewed for relevance, and updated with platform, feature, member, review, and traffic data where available.
: The full directory is on Hive Index's Volunteering topic page, where you can filter by platform, size, features, and more.