Nearly a quarter of all volunteers give their time in sport, but little has been done to assess their impact. This pilot study was undertaken in 2007 - 2008 to help sports clubs assess the impact of their volunteers and develop research instruments for the future.
This project took the original generic volunteering impact assessment toolkit and applied it within a sport setting.
There were two aims for the project:
- Creating sport specific tools to allow other sport organisations to measure the impact of their volunteering
Test the tools created with sport organisations, leading to a report on the study. There are three outputs of this project:
A set of tools for sport organisations to use to measure the impact of their own volunteers - A set of tools available for sport organisations to use to measure the impact of their volunteering
- The research bulletin summarises the methods of the project and the results.
- The research report shows the full findings of the study.
The findings of the study
The pilot study found that volunteers are the lifeblood of sport in local communities and that young people especially gain a greater sense of community through their involvement. However the study also pointed to the need for more development in the management of sport volunteers, particularly to deal with problems of overload and succession. About the project
The research worked with three sports national governing bodies: The Rugby Football Union, England Hockey and Riding for the Disabled. The focus was on ten local clubs, groups or associations from these sports to create case studies: The composition of the case studies aimed to capture variation: for example, in structure and management of the organisations.
Following initial interviews and literature review, a checklist of possible volunteer impacts was compiled, adapting the Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit (VIAT) framework to the sporting context. The checklist for RDA groups varied , to capture impacts specific to disabled people.
Questionnaires have been produced for: volunteers; players and members; young players; external organisations; and club officers. These differ from the generic Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit in including a new question focusing on ‘enjoyment, fun and satisfaction’, since this was often the first response of volunteers and players when asked what they got out of their involvement.
Volunteering England would like to thank Riding for the Disabled, England Hockey, the Rugby Football Union and especially the more than 100 volunteers and players in local organisations who have been involved in the work.
