Volunteerism as the core of democracy represents a significant part of societal development. In order to raise awareness on the benefits and importance of volunteerism, what needs to be done at an early stage is to present at schools all its advantages and opportunities both for individuals and society as a whole.

It might be conducted on individual basis or within an organisational structure that may guarantee training of volunteers, their coordination and continuity of work performance. If young people are well informed and possess positive experience, they might continue volunteering during their lifetime, thus being an inspiration other people, younger than themselves.  

Volunteerism has gained the following definition, stipulated by the Law on Volunteerism, “Volunteerism is a voluntary and free of charge investment of time, knowledge and skills to perform services or activities for the benefit of another person or for the overall societal benefit”. The European Commission recommends to the member states to improve volunteering potentials in the following ways:

- In countries lacking developed volunteerism structure in which there is a poor volunteering tradition or culture, setting a legal framework may provide an incentive for the support to development of volunteerism;

- Short-term volunteering initiatives which can be easily integrated into persons’ jobs and family life should be supported, as well as the solutions promoting transition from occasional towards long-term volunteerism;

- Support should be provided to the development of civil society organisations (as key promoters of volunteering activities) on the local, national and European level. It is important to ensure a continuous dialogue with civil society that promotes training of volunteers and organisations involving volunteers in their work;

- The recognition of competences and skills attained through volunteering should be valued, as this is essential as a motivating factor for those bridging volunteering and education.

Nowadays, volunteerism is generally accepted as a free and one’s own will activity aimed at improving the quality of life of an individual, though people also volunteer in order to develop their own skills, to meet other people, to establish contacts for potential employment, to entertain themselves, and the like. Therefore, volunteerism is an act of an unselfish provision of assistance to something in which we believe, without any compensation. Although persons volunteer and do not make money, this creates a sense of one’s own value and volunteers gain respect instead of money.

Volunteerism has a lot of forms: volunteering based on skills, volunteering in developing countries, virtual volunteering, micro volunteering, environmental volunteering, emergency volunteering, school-based volunteering, corporative volunteering, community volunteering, international volunteer camps, etc.

In order to enable the development of volunteering programmes, it is of paramount importance to take into account market measures that will stimulate educational institutions to develop strategic plans for social responsibility of the system, which will contain volunteerism related activities. In addition to this, it is also important to inform and educate all actors of education system on efficient human resource policy on systemic level, in accordance with commercial and market trends, aimed at more efficient and productive involvement of volunteers.

In our region, investment in knowledge is still far away from the top priority of a personal portfolio of a citizen. Labour market supply and demand are indicators that will make this instrument exceptionally important in the following period.