The organization began as a movement of volunteers to help with the 1979 harvest, but soon was institutionalized and took on a broader, more developmental role in the countryside.

It was involved with road building, piped water, electrification, clinics, schools, and irrigation canals.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini has called them the "trench-less trench-makers" (سنگرسازان بی سنگر sangar-sāzān-e bi-sangar).

[7] The organization engaged in development activities overseas in Tanzania (from 1987), Ghana and Lebanon (1989), Sudan and Sierra Leone (1991), and Albania (1993).

Iran's Reconstruction Jihad: Rural Development and Regime Consolidation after 1979.