Almost 18% of adult Poles worked this year (2003) in non-governmental organisations, associations, social or religious movements. There is a slow but systematic increase in the number of volunteers in our country.

The most frequent volunteers are young people - one in five is under 25. People at the end of their professional career (aged 46-55) are equally keen to be active. Pensioners are the least active - only 8% of volunteers are over 55.

In the last month, a Polish volunteer devoted an average of 5.5 hours to his or her work. They were most willing to get involved in organisations dealing with education, upbringing and childcare (about 24% of volunteers) and helping the poorest (18.5%).

Most often, people choose to volunteer 'out of conviction' - they believe that it is necessary to help others (84%) or they express the hope that their help will bear fruit and someone will help them in the future too (67%). Every third volunteer declares that in this way they want to learn something new, they want to gain practice that will help them get a job in the future.

However, still the majority of Poles (over 80%) are not interested in volunteering. More than half (58%) explain that they have to take care of themselves and their own family first and foremost.
Almost every second person (44%) explains themselves by lack of time or emphasises that no one has asked them for such help (41%). As many as 40% of Poles have never even thought about volunteering.