Voluntary activities are an important factor to strengthen social structures and society in Germany. Young volunteers can opt to work in various areas such as social welfare, sports, projects involving children and young people, monument preservation, culture, peace projects or activities to support refugees, education, geriatric care, the environment and nature conservation.

The chapter focuses on volunteering schemes. There are a number of different national and international state-funded voluntary services in Germany young people can engage in which are described more profoundly in the section on Youth Volunteering at national level and in the section on Cross-border mobility programmes. The chapter also provides information on their legal bases and the guidelines these services follow. One of the key components of the state-funded voluntary services is the educational support volunteers receive as learning is one of the main goals in voluntary services.

Providers of voluntary services continue to intensify their efforts to reach out to target groups who are disproportionately underrepresented in volunteering schemes.