Organizations are engines for political and social development. A vibrant democracy needs impulses from its citizens, and voluntary organisations create communication channels into a democratic government and the public sphere for interest groups and citizens who are passionate about a cause. In this way, the organisations also help their members to understand democracy and encourage them to help shape the public opinion, as schools of democracy.

Norway has a long tradition with a strong civil sector, with a well developed Nordic model: organizations that both receives money from the government, cooperates with the government and criticize the government.

The voluntary sector in Norway consists of 115 000 non-governmental and non-profit organizations. The majority of organizations are based locally, have no employees and very small financial means.

There are 10 million memberships in NGOs and 80 % of the Norwegians are members of one or more organization(s).

48 % of the grown-up Norwegian population participates in voluntary work annually and the total contribution of Norwegian volunteers is equivalent to 115 000 full time employees.

36 % of the funding of the voluntary sector comes from central and local governments, 7 % comes from private donors, and 57 % of the funding comes from membership fees and sales.

Voluntary organisations are pioneers, in the past they developed a number of institutions and schemes aimed at particular purposes and groups, and later on their work has often been seen as a government responsibility and has become a part of the Norwegian welfare state model.