ABSTRACT
People who engage in voluntary charitable activity are motivated first and foremost at a personal level: they see a need and a necessity for their volunteering. They get involved for altruistic motives, but can also pursue self-referential goals such as recognition, social relationships or the acquisition of skills. The most important criteria for successful or satisfying charitable engagement are meaningfulness and autonomy in the activity. Voluntary charitable activity can provide a counterbalance to externally determined formal employment but does not change the structure of organised formal employment under capitalism. Voluntary charitable activity, which up to now has been widespread at the centre of bourgeois society, is facing numerous challenges, which reflect, among other things, the changes in a society hitherto structured around formal employment.
