CVSA is an all-volunteer coordinating and consultative body of nongovernment volunteer service organizations founded in 1945 to promote, expand, and strengthen voluntary service programs that serve people in need and are organizing for change. We carry out activities to inspire and compel more people into action as volunteers involved in service to others and organizing to build a better world. We provide supportive services on a mutual assistance basis to our members, which are independent organizations based mostly throughout North America as well as around the rest of the world.

• CVSA publishes and distributes the biennial INVEST YOURSELF: A Guide to Action, a comprehensive catalogue of full- and part-time volunteer opportunities with nongovernment and community-based organizations which is distributed nationwide.
• CVSA conducts community education campaigns and volunteer recruitment outreach to promote and distribute INVEST YOURSELF and to expand general awareness, support for and involvement with independent volunteer service and action organizations.
• CVSA works to protect the fundamental right of individuals to freely associate with others and participate in voluntary service activities that stand independent from the domain of narrow private financial interests or failed government programs and maintain accountability to the needs of the people and communities being served, providing examples of how best to serve people and care for the planet.
• CVSA promotes genuine, independent voluntary service to those in need, without remuneration to any individual or strings attached in exchange for the service given. CVSA rejects schemes that exploit volunteers through programs in which “volunteers” are employed by the government as free or cheap labor, replacing former union-wage workers; or in which ‘volunteers” are supplied by public agencies as subsidized labor to private corporations (designated as “trainees”), to the companies’ profit and the “trainee’s” expense; and in which student “volunteers” work off their loans at minimum-wage jobs that perpetuate conditions of poverty.
• CVSA has long recognized and promoted the special role of full-time volunteers in all movements for progressive change and in service to others, especially those who have been marginalized.
• In 2013 CVSA gained Special NGO Consultative Status to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN, having had NGO status associated with the Department of Public Information (DPI) of the UN since 1946.
• CVSA is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. We operate with an entirely volunteer staff led by full-time volunteer organizers and part-time volunteers. All contributions are applied to operating and expansion expenses. No salaries are paid. We accept no funding that imposes constraints on our ability to serve our membership and the people they serve.