This article describes the work of World Leisure, an international organization devoted to the scientific study and promotion of leisure, and its Volunteerism Commission.

...it is relatively rare both in the study of leisure and in the study of voluntarism and citizen participation to find these two concepts discussed together. In the first field, possibly because volunteering is seen "as somewhat more lofty than . . . the fun and frivolity often associated with leisure" (Henderson, 1984, p. 58), volunteers have for the most part been ignored as subjects of research. Researchers in the second field typically look on volunteers as unpaid helpers, as people filling a distinct, contributory role in modern society and, more particularly, in certain kinds of organizations. Whether this role is work or leisure or something else seldom stirs much interest. Thus, whether it is leisure studies specialists looking at volunteering or voluntary action specialists looking at leisure, the result has been much the same: neither field has been inclined to view its own subject matter through the eyes of the other.