The volunteering in sport work at Volunteering England has been funded since April 2005 by Sport England.
This funding allows a Strategic Development Manager to work from within Volunteering England to bring sport and volunteering together.
The previous three years have seen sport becoming known as part of the third sector within Volunteering England. The rest of the third sector infrastructure organisations still generally consider sport to be a totally separate sector - outside of the voluntary and community world.
Volunteering England recognises the voluntary and community element of sport in England. We welcome working with sport, and encourage further engagement between volunteering organisations and sport.
In 2007 - 2009 the focus is on volunteer management and measurement.
The postholder does not provide this directly, but aims to join up sport and volunteering infrastructure strategically. For example linking Volunteering England's Information Team with runningsports.
As sport is a large sector, with 106,000 voluntary or community clubs, 400 community sports networks, 49 county sports partnerships, 9 Sport England offices and many national partners - all with an interest in sport volunteering - the project is targeting specific organisations this year.
In the sport sector, we are targeting the following organisations:
Sport England nationally, regionally and their funded region partners.
County sports partnerships.
National governing bodies
With Volunteer Centres and Volunteering England:
Volunteer Centres are now working with sport across England.
This post is working to support Volunteer Centres who want to work with sport. Volunteer Centres can expect contacts, information, advice, guidance and a champion in the world of sport for their work with volunteer management.
The postholder's internal work at Volunteering England is akin to a sport account manager. The work aims to ensure that all teams consider sport, and the delivery system for sport as key contacts within the wider third sector. Specifically, the Investing in Volunteers team, the Institute of Volunteering Research, Excellence in Volunteer Management and the Information teams, among many others are regularly briefed on the world of sport. These teams and others are starting to work with sport to improve and increase volunteer management.
In the wider volunteering and voluntary sector:
Other volunteering infrastructure organisations have worked with the project, such as Youthnet (who manage and own www.do-it.org.uk, and Timebank.
NAVCA are now a key partner, as they work with Sport England in a similar way, who from 2007 have funded a post to develop links between the wider voluntary and community sector and sport.
For more information contact:
Laura Ferguson
Volunteering England Strategic Development Manager - Volunteering in Sport
Volunteering England
Laura.ferguson@volunteeringengland.org.uk
