2021 Veterans CHI – Defining Our Future Leaders: The Civic Health of the Post-9/11 Generation

Just ahead of Veterans Day, we are excited to release the 2021 Veterans Civic Health Index – Defining Our Future Leaders: The Civic Health of Post- 9/11 Veterans – in partnership with The Mission Continues and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. 


This report represents the fourth edition of this type of analysis on the veterans community- again showing that veterans outperform non-veterans in multiple forms of civic engagement including voting, donating, and volunteering.

Click here to download the full report.

  • On the whole, veterans – both old and young – are more civically engaged than their civilian counterparts
  • Voting participation of veterans has increased since 2012, and in the 2020 presidential election, veterans were more likely to vote (65.8 percent) than nonveterans (61.7 percent).
  • Young veterans (under the age of 50) are more likely to volunteer in their communities (31.8 percent) than young nonveterans (30.2 percent), and veterans contribute more volunteer hours on average than nonveterans
  • Veterans exceed nonveterans in all measures of interpersonal social connectedness; veterans are 20 percent more likely to spend time with neighbors than are nonveterans
  • Nearly 60 percent of veterans, including more than half of young veterans (under the age of 50) regularly contribute money to charity, compared to 52 percent of nonveterans
  • The post-9/11 generation of veterans (those who served in the military after September 10, 2001) demonstrate higher levels of civic health than their civilian counterparts, are the most diverse group of veterans in history, and are more likely to volunteer in their communities than are veterans of older generations
  • Since the release of the previous Veteran Civic Health Index, veterans have shown an increase in most measures of civic health, including their propensity to vote, volunteer, and give to charity