Volunteers are who make sport happen in the UK. How you set about developing sports volunteering will determine the long term sustainability of any sports or physical activity project.
Are you interested in developing a Sports Volunteering Action Group (SVAG)? You can download a copy of the Guide from the RAWM website here.
Want to Measure the Economic Impact of Your Event? - Use the excellent and very simple - Economic Impact Toolkit - www.eitoolkit.org.uk
London have produced an excellent guide on Cultural Volunteering that might be useful for some crossover tips - here
If you want to learn about the world of the Volunteer Manager - then definitely join the Yahoo Volunteer Manager's Group, and perhaps read this blog by Rob Jackson. It might also be worth checking up on what this project on sport and volunteering are up to in London.
Are you working with Sports Clubs? Try these good practice examples:
The most comprehensive funding guide for coaches I have found so far - from Sports Coach UK.
England Athetics have developed superb resources here - http://www.englandathletics.org/page.asp?section=1454§ionTitle=Volunteer+Toolkit
Developing Volunteering Roles – Athletics also have good resources on pages around the one shown above and cricket have very well developed material here - http://www.ecb.co.uk/development/clubs-and-leagues/clubmark/clubmark-process/ecb-clubmark-process-step-2,1121,BP.html
Advertising the Role – see the Coventry University Shared System here http://www.cswsport.org.uk/Volunteer
Selecting and Welcoming your Volunteer – see Swimming’s work here – http://tv.swimming.org/channel/volunteers#channels
Safe Recruitment – England Hockey have a thorough guide here - http://englandhockey.co.uk/page.asp?section=630§ionTitle=Safe+Recruitment
General Club Development - Scottish Hockey have good template like this one - and pages like this one.
Retaining Volunteers – Running Sports have a guide here - http://www.runningsports.org/club_support/all_resources/top_tips/Retaining+Volunteers
Best Practice Examples
Volunteering England have done some excellent work on developing tools for sports clubs and professionals - keep up to date here.
They have even produced a guide to support professionals to develop sports volunteering.
NAVCA have developed some interesting pilot projects in this area - http://www.navca.org.uk/localvs/sport
IDEA.gov provide guidance and support for Local Authorities in a number of areas - here is their Culture and Sport Homepage an example of the kind of tools they provide is the Passion for Excellence guide - which features a number of links to toolkits and guides.
This section will be added to over the life of this project - so come back here again and see what's new...
Click here for some good practice examples
National Measures of Volunteering
The Taking Part Survey is one of the measures of people's participation in sport, but the main measure is the Active People Survey that is renewed yearly, with quarterly updates.
Helping Out was a comprehensive national survey of voluntary action.
Research on the Benefits of Volunteering
The Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) are the real hub of information for this, and their publication library - here. One of their major projects has been around the Commission on the Future of Volunteering.
The IVR have produced a fantastic report on how Volunteering can have a positive impact on people's health - look at the project here.
Sport England's research centre is well put together.
Think tanks are also an interesting place to look for research to support a funding application, or strategy development.
Demos did a report called Service Nation and The New Economics Foundation did a report on the way to happiness called Five Ways to Well Being which can cross over significantly with Volunteering.
The European Social Research Council and CSV produced a report called the Value of Volunteering.
Funding Links
If you, or groups you are working with, are interested in finding funding, you can try various national online searches, like
www.fundingcentral.org.uk
www.governmentfunding.org.uk
www.grantfinder.co.uk
But the best bet is to contact your local CVS - which you can find here.
This website has been developed as a result of the 2012 Sports Volunteering Project. The Project consulted widely to develop the 2012 Regional Sports Volunteering Strategy - you can download it here - PDF - 1mb, or just the Executive Summary - PDF - 304kb.
Is Sport Ready to Grow? Conference - 28th April, 2010
With 2012 approaching, it is anticipated that there will be more demand from people wanting to get involved with sport both as volunteers and participants. Are the agencies that have an interest in this working together as effectively as they should?
on the 28th April, RAWM, Physical Activity Network West Midlands and Volunteering England put on the 'Is Sport Ready to Grow?' conference - read about what was achieved here.
If you have any comments or suggestions for the content of the volunteering section of the website – please email the Coordinator here.