In this essential, the authors discuss the essential points for understanding and organizing volunteer work. They address the following questions: How can we understand volunteer work? How essential is it for this kind of work that it remains unpaid and is carried out by so-called lay people with special motivations? What does this imply for the interplay between volunteer work and professionalized, paid gainful employment? These questions are increasingly being asked, because without the unpaid activities of volunteers, no current community can exist.