Before the industrial revolution, rural communities relied upon forms of volunteering for their survival. This included building homes for invalids and the elderly and maintaining roads, for example. This is still the case for many countries in the third world. As society started to become increasingly more industrialised in the 19^th century however, these values started to depreciate. This may also have been a result of the growing use of money as a means of exchange and the reduction of a sense of community as people moved into towns and did not know many of their neighbours.

After the horrific events that people suffered during the First World War, values of solidarity and the desire to help one another began to make a return. The first international voluntary work camp was created to rebuild a village in France and featured volunteers from various European countries. This event led to the first modern voluntary service movement called Service Civil International, or SCI. More voluntary service organisations began to appear across Europe throughout the 1920s and 30s. They were also established in countries such as the United States where the unemployed were given useful tasks to complete following the country’s economic crisis. Volunteers played an important role again in the wake of the Second World War, as they rebuilt parts of Europe and established international friendships.

International volunteering organisations that were founded in order to aid developing countries began to take off in the 1960s. By the time that the 1970s arrived, organisations for international volunteers were more firmly established and the UN Volunteers programme was founded at the beginning of the decade. From the 1980s, travel abroad became much easier and a lot more common, helping the international volunteering movement to flourish.

Since then, the influence of volunteering has increased and more and more people are becoming volunteers, both nationally and internationally, although international volunteering often receives more publicity. The increase in the number of international volunteers is partly due to the internet. The ease of access to worldwide information that the internet provides draws attention to the plights of developing countries encourages people to feel closer together and increases the desire for people to help their international neighbours.