I think this overstates things. A great deal of the religious volunteering is not really religious in nature. Churches are a natural place for planning today so much of the religious volunteering is really volunteering at hospitals, nursing homes, education, baby sitting, community service, cookouts etc that is merely conducted through a religious affiliation. Habitat for Humanity is a good example. People consider this religious volunteering because their church recruits volunteers to help build the homes but other than a silly prayer when the family takes occupancy of the home there isn't anything religious about it.
Some of these numbers don't seem right either. Sports and hobbies 1.8%? I don't buy that. I think more than 2% of the population play sports of some kind don't they.
I can classify some of my volunteer work as community service, meals on wheels and pet therapy for example, but I do some metal work for different organizations or individuals free of charge if they supply the materials. On some occasions I've even supplied the materials as well. I don't know how I would classify that time volunteered. I suspect because it isn't a group activity it somehow wouldn't count in this survey. I've donated works of art to different charities so I classify that as time spend doing volunteer work. It's voluntary, I receive no remuneration, and it is not for my direct personal benefit. Also the time spent on pet therapy visits pales compared to time spent training the animals. This again is not a group activity and I would be willing to bet that if I asked anyone in the Pet Therapy of the Ozarks organization how much time they spent they would only count the hours per week on visits.
Even if it were possible to correct for the discrepancies I list above that I think exist I agree that this is depressing.
John Thornton