This paper aims to understand the rationale of local people in voluntarily making community building efforts. From the viewpoint of the locals making such efforts, this paper examines the voluntary community associations that exists in Hachi village, a rural village where depopulation and aging is advancing. As a result, the locals’ rationale is that in the present social situation in which some community building efforts can no longer be made according to “principal of full participation,” they can carry out activities considered necessary for everyone in the village while respecting negative and positive freedom of their own and of those who do not make such efforts. Activities established by the “principle of voluntary will” are also found in full-participation community associations. Today, it is difficult for Hachi village to continue to exist as a local community without the locals who are active according to “principle of voluntary will.” Because of that, the shortage of community building leaders has clearly become an urgent problem.
