The main aim of the research is to understand the development and distribution of social welfare voluntary activity by investigating the inter-relations between voluntary organizations, local communities and tiers of the state. The study focussed on Glasgow, a city which faces huge challenges in delivering social welfare. The study aimed to address the following questions: what types of voluntary organizations are active in Glasgow, where and why; what forms of relationships develop between voluntary organizations and the places where they are active; what impact does the political context have on the development of voluntary organizations. The dataset contains records of all known social welfare voluntary organizations operating the in the Glasgow area at May - June 2000, and brief details on their function. The data are taken from publicly-available sources.