James Davis, Director of Program and Marketing at Vanderkamp Center, sees it as a golden opportunity for not-for-profit organizations such as his that may have difficulty attracting volunteers on their own.

FORBES: Startup Aims To Help College Grads Volunteer Their Way Out Of Student Debt

It is not typically designed to align and engage employees as volunteers to take action.

FORBES: The Secret Formula for Corporate Strategy Execution

The mystique touches not only the estimated 10, 000 Saudis who fought as volunteers in Afghanistan, but also the country's huge and growing pool of unemployed youths.

ECONOMIST: Saudi Arabia wakes up to the reality of al-Qaeda

But it was presented as all about volunteers and charities, which did not add up to voters too harried to run local libraries.

ECONOMIST: The Cameron government

She argues that these results were not caused by the low-power volunteers being less motivated, as they had the same financial incentive as the high-power volunteers to do well.

ECONOMIST: Cognitive disenhancement

Adding email and Twitter support meant finding volunteers who could not only speak various languages but write them as well.

FORBES: The Business of Tracking Santa

Baroness Wilcox said this was not a problem as there was no legal definition of an intern, only workers and volunteers.

BBC: Peer: Parliament should take on more interns

The organisation said the volunteers did not just provide books for the patients but "conversation and comfort" as well.

BBC: Library volunteers are awarded