developing guidance to help clubs recruit new volunteers from outside the club peter taylor, richard...

Developing guidance to help clubs recruit new volunteers

from outside the club

Peter Taylor, Richard Moore & Simon Goldsmith,

Sport Industry Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University.

Geoff Nichols, Management School, University of Sheffield

Volunteers in sports clubs – what’s the problem?

• 53% of clubs say recruiting / retaining volunteers is a problem (SARA club survey 2011)

• A few volunteers do a lot of the work• Volunteer roles grow around key people –

who are hard to replace.

Volunteers in sports clubs – what’s the problem?

• Volunteers’ work becomes more demanding and therefore off-putting– Coaching qualifications– Accreditations – Clubmark– Legislation – CRB checks– Club have to offer an experience that attracts

and retains members – more ‘professional’

Clubs don’t look outside for volunteers

• Unusual for volunteers to come outside of– Players and parents: easier to recruit from but

they restrict recruitment

• If a new person just comes along and wants to help – do clubs know what to do with them?

The ‘market’ for volunteers – less volunteering and more episodic

• 25% of people volunteered formally at least once a month in 2010-11, which is lower than at any point between 2001 and 2007-08.

• A trend towards ‘episodic’ volunteering – people are willing to volunteer for a limited time.

The EYV project

• Funded from Office for Civil Society• Brokered by Sport's Strategic Partnership

for Volunteering– Phase 1: guidance from best practice cases

of recruiting volunteers from outside the club– Phase 2: test guidance with clubs which do

not recruit from outside the club– Phase 3: finalise guidance and disseminate

Phase 1: best practice

• Six focus groups with clubs– facilitators and constraints to the recruitment,

utilisation and development of volunteers from outside the club

• previous guidance - NB runningsports; NGB guidance

Phase 2: testing the guidance

• 12 interviews:– 1 Phase 1 club– 6 Clubs with volunteer shortages and internal

recruitment of volunteers – 3 CSPs – 2 NGBs

• Clubs have 'just not thought to recruit volunteers from outside'

• Very positive response to guidance• Presentation as important as content

The guidance: key messages

• People from outside the club are not aliens– they have relevant skills – in the current economic environment they

want opportunities

• Many tasks in the clubs are not sport-specific, e.g.:– chair, treasurer, secretary, fixture secretary,

child protection, health and safety, PR, sponsorship and fundraising, website

The guidance: key messages

• Preparation for recruitment, e.g.:– task descriptions– task splitting– specific skill requirements– training needs– duration and frequency of tasks

• Consider appointing a volunteer coordinator• But the bottom line is: what does the

volunteer want?

The guidance: key messages

• Consider all possible external sources, including:– Friends of players and members– Local volunteer centres– Universities and colleges– Probation Service– Local sports centres, fitness clubs, etc.

The guidance: key messages

• Use a variety of means of promoting opportunities– club website– open day– NGBs– websites, NB Do-it, vinspired, Sport Makers,

Time Bank, Gumtree

The guidance: key messages• Either specific role, or general helping out• Nurturing new volunteers:

– Speed of response– Volunteer coordinator– Mentors– Training opportunities– Rewards

• Formalities vs. informalities - get the balance right:– task descriptions, CRB checks, club rules and procedures

vs.– making the volunteer feel comfortable and maintaining their

motivation

Phase 3 events and further dissemination

• Leeds (27/10); Birmingham (28/10); London (1/11)

• Key agencies: NGBs and CSPs

Challenges

• Alerting clubs to opportunities outside their clubs

• Achieving clubs' searching for volunteers outside clubs

• Capacity of local volunteer centres to respond

• Capacity of universities and colleges to respond

• Connecting with Sport Makers

Thank you. Questions?

peter.taylor@shu.ac.uk