The report presents the results of a nationwide survey of volunteering and updated figures for the voluntary sector's employment and economy. The results show a vital voluntary sector which still holds up very well in international comparison.

Measured in economic terms, the sector has expanded, albeit at a slower rate than the economy as a whole. At the same time, extensive changes, both in scope, form and content, are taking place.

The volunteer efforts have reached a temporary saturation point. A flash of increased shortterm volunteering that took place between 1997 and 2004 has now subsided. At the same time, the bedrock of the organizational community is eroding as the proportion contributing more than an hour of voluntary work per week is declining.

But new arenas of volunteering in connection with the Internet and social media are also emerging. Participation is increasingly contingent on social and demographic factors: We found significant differences between different income groups, between those on the inside and outside of the labor market and between urban and rural areas.

Moreover, organizational activity is more clearly characterized by organized individualism than before, as ties between participant and organization are fewer and weaker, voluntary work is becoming more non-committal and the motivation of volunteers more related to self development and self-realization.

We raise the question of whether the previously dominant popular movement model - based on member participation and broad social mobilization - is a sustainable model for organized voluntary activity in the future, or whether we are moving towards a new type of civil society.