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Quality development and assessment procedures bring with them a logic of competency expected of voluntary workers in social centers. This is so even though the “training” they undergo is historically linked to an ideal of open, popular education based on a process of knowledge sharing. “Professional” methods are imported into the organization of voluntary workers’ roles in order to guarantee that the rules of social intervention are obeyed. Formal recruitment procedures and training schemes are organized, ones that present analogies with professional systems. If professional legitimacy depends on recognition of work activities (training and diplomas), what does voluntary legitimacy depend on? What place does it occupy in organizational logic, in the organization’s activities, and in individual approaches to engagement?