On this page

1. National Programme for Youth Volunteering

2. Funding

3. Characteristics of youth volunteering

4. Target groups

National Programme for Youth Volunteering

There is no general, nation-wide programme for youth volunteering, which would be organised, funded, and monitored by the Finnish State. In this sense, Finland does not have a national programme for youth volunteering.

Funding

Since there is no general, nation-wide programme for youth volunteering, this is not strictly applicable. Although youth volunteering often takes place in the third sector, it should be emphasised that the public authorities do have an important role regarding the funding of youth volunteering. For example, the Ministry of Education and Culture allocates state aid to national youth work service organisations and organisations carrying out youth work. These include organisations that are involved in youth volunteering. For more information, see Youth Wiki/Finland 5.6 Supporting youth organisations and Youth Wiki/Finland 1.7 Funding youth policy.

Secondly, the most important funding sources of voluntary organisations include also membership fees, fundraising, donations, and service delivery. However, there are clear sectoral differences in the funding sources of voluntary organisations. Voluntary youth organisations are mostly funded by state subsidies, EU funds, foundations, state ministries and private sources.

A significant form of public support for youth and sports is the tax-free nature of volunteer work. Non-profit organisations do not need to pay taxes on the income gained through fundraising, donations, membership fees, etc. if no individual receives direct personal benefit from it and that all the funds are used for the ‘common good’ - to support activities for the entire club or team.

The sources of funding of Finnish voluntary organisations are

• Membership fees
• Fundraising
• Donations
• The use of facilities free of charge, voluntary workforce
• Income from service provision
• Sale of products
• Income from advertisements (e.g. in a magazine of a voluntary organisation)
• Agreements with private companies
• Grants from local and national authorities
• Project funding
• Capital income (e.g. rent income, etc.).

No conflicts of interest have been identified between the state aid rules and the allocation of grants and subsidies to voluntary organisations. One of the primary reasons for this is due to the long tradition of the activities of the voluntary sector. 

Characteristics of youth volunteering

According to the study “Voluntarism in Finland 2024” (in Finnish), ordered by the Citizen Forum, the Sivis Study Centre and the the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and realised by the market research company Taloustutkimus, young people aged 15–24 years are the second most active group of volunteers among all the age groups. In 2024, young people aged 15–24 were doing on average about 19 hours of voluntary work (if doing it more than one hour during the asked period) in the four weeks prior, in comparison with about 17 hours done by the rest of the population. When compared to the last figures, which were taken from the covid period of 2021, the amount of young volunteering has more than doubled.  

Young people who had never done voluntary work were more interested in trying it (50 %) than all the other age groups. Of those, 74% were young women, and 39% were young men. There are 30% of young people in both thinking of doing voluntary work as much as now or more. Young people were also more interested in doing organised volunteering through some organisation, rather than doing it individually. There is unfortunately no age-specific information available about the main fields where activities of young people take place. 

Target groups

The Youth Act and the Government Decree on Youth Work and Youth Policy do not identify specific target groups within the youth population whose participation in voluntary activities will be fostered. 

However, in accordance with the Government Decree, grounds for approval to be identified as a national youth organisation, and therefore entitled to subsidies, can be departed from if an organisation can be deemed to be nationally representative of a language or other minority or a specific branch. Although this measure is not directly aimed at fostering participation in voluntary activities, it does take into consideration minorities in the third sector and supports their participation.