Volunteering in Stuttgart

Pick one or two offers in the city’s volunteering exchange. The exchange is free, and the volunteer agency checks all offers regularly. Through the offer you contact the organisation directly and arrange to meet.

If you are unsure what suits you, the agency’s counselling team helps. Its members are volunteers themselves and advise individually, free of charge and without obligation. The agency grew out of a civic initiative in 2004 and in 2024 received the quality seal of the federal association of volunteer centres for the sixth time.

Above all you need time, reliability and an interest in the task. For many roles no special knowledge is required, because the placements show you the ropes. Usually there is no set age, but some tasks have a minimum age, such as 16 or 18. It matters that you say honestly how much time you have, so that the task fits your everyday life.

If you work with children and young people, many organisations ask for an extended certificate of conduct. For roles in rescue services, hospice work or supporting people with dementia, there is often training before your first assignment. In Stuttgart, the volunteer agency’s counselling team clears up such questions with you in a counselling session.

Volunteering is unpaid in principle, but many placements reimburse expenses such as travel or pay an expense allowance. Since 1 January 2026, such an allowance is tax-free up to 960 euros a year; this is the volunteer allowance. If you work as a coach, carer, in an artistic role or in care, you can use the trainer allowance of up to 3,300 euros. The two allowances cannot be used for the same activity at the same time.

The Stuttgart community foundation shows what this looks like in practice: it gives volunteers a travel subsidy and reimburses expenses. On electoral boards at federal, European and state elections there is an allowance of at least 35 euros for the chair and 25 euros for the other members.

Yes. Baden-Württemberg has been introducing its volunteer card step by step since mid-2025, and Stuttgart is one of the first cities to take part. You get it if you have volunteered for at least a year and, in the past twelve months, have worked at least 200 hours voluntarily and unpaid for a public-benefit organisation. Anyone who has worked at least 100 hours in a single project can get a project card that is valid for one year.

You apply online with the city and need a confirmation from your organisation. The card arrives by post or digitally in the volunteer card app. It gives you reduced entry or access to special offers with selected partners in education, culture and sport.

Statutory accident insurance and the insurance of your organisation come first, for example when you work in social welfare or on behalf of the city. Ask at your first meeting how your placement handles this.

Since 1 January 2006, the State of Baden-Württemberg has also had group policies for liability and accident insurance for volunteers. They mainly protect volunteers in small initiatives, groups and projects from the financial consequences of property damage and personal injury. Volunteers pay nothing for them.

Besides the volunteer card, Stuttgart awards two honours of its own. The Lord Mayor presents the plaque of honour every year at the citizens’ reception, and the municipal council decides who receives it. In addition, each district can award up to three coins of honour a year.

You do not apply for these honours yourself; someone nominates you. If you know someone who has been active in your district for years, ask the district office how a nomination works.