Social civil society and nonprofit organizations have played an indisputable role over the past three decades—by undertaking public tasks, providing services, and engaging in advocacy—not only in shaping the nonprofit sector, but also social policy itself.Our study analyzes the characteristics of these organizations and their volunteers, drawing on nonprofit statistical data from 1994 to 2024. As a theoretical framework, we assume that the Hungarian social policy and welfare system have been shaped by two main paradigms over the past thirty years: the "premature welfare state" and the "work-based society." This analysis seeks to explore the specific roles and opportunities for service delivery available to the nonprofit sector—and social nonprofit organizations in particular—within these two paradigms. To this end, we review the legal frameworks and responsibilities assigned by social policy and nonprofit regulations to cross-sectoral cooperation. Our findings indicate that until 2010, within a pluralistic welfare model, social nonprofit organizations could barely assume public social tasks due to their limited economic power, rendering their participation in public services merely supplementary or corrective. This role also contributed to their growing financial dependence on state and local government subsidies. In the subsequent era of workfarism (the work-based society), a specific, state-controlled welfare mix model emerged among the four sectors, characterized by a structural division of labor. The sectoral positioning of social nonprofit organizations is defined by a differentiation between state, civil, market, and faith-based spheres, which directly impacts their economic power, employment potential, and revenue structure. Structurally, Hungarian social nonprofit organizations are dominated by foundations, as well as urban and general multi-purpose organizations. Furthermore, the professionalization of the sub-sector is demonstrated by the fact that the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees increased at a significantly sharper rate during the examined period than that of voluntary full-time equivalents (VOL-FTE).

Keywords: social nonprofit organisations, welfare pluralism, welfare mix, premature welfare state, work-based society,