A community at the ready to volunteer? Check. Residents willing to put in long hours helping neighbors? Yup. Folks willing to donate money as well as time? Absolutely.

Those are the qualities NerdWallet.com found in aces in Iowa City, which is why it recently ranked the city the fourth most generous in the United States. The article also notes the role the University of Iowa plays in making Iowa City a generous, giving place.

“The U.S. is a generous country,” write the editors of NerdWallet.com, a personal finance and credit card comparison website launched in March 2010. “The World Giving Index ranks the United States as the fifth most generous in the world. We wanted to see which places in the U.S. were the most generous by looking at the following factors.”

Here’s what it looked for:

• A culture of volunteerism in the area, based on the percentage of residents that volunteered in a year.
• Strong commitments to volunteerism, based on the number of hours volunteered in a year.
• A commitment to financial donations, based on the median percentage of income donated by residents.

Based on its findings, the Website said Iowa City “sees 49.2 percent of its residents volunteer every year. Residents volunteer an average of 57.6 hours per year and donate 4 percent of their median income to charity.”

“The city is home to the University of Iowa, which challenges its students to give back to the community through its Community-Based Learning Program (offered through the Pomerantz Career Center), which has a large volunteer component,” the article states.

Iowa City isn’t the only town in the state that was recognized. Des Moines earned the No. 15 spot, and Cedar Rapids was ranked No. 18. Of the 20 cities ranked all together, Provo, Utah, was ranked No. 1, and Lancaster, Pa. was ranked No. 20.

More information here.