Spotlight on: Volunteering
Introduction
“Without volunteers, most sport and activity simply wouldn’t happen”. Sport England
Our Spotlight On: Volunteering highlights the benefits of volunteering and signposts you to the support and resources available to help local organisations recruit and retain more volunteers. We hope you find the following information of interest.
Research and Insight
A number of national organisations have carried out research to share the benefits of volunteering plus guidance to help organisations reflect on their own approach to volunteering.
Sport and Recreation Alliance Research
Hidden Diamonds is the ground-breaking research into the hidden value of sport volunteers, going beyond cost to measure the true value they create – through participation, wellbeing, trust and community.
Research found that those who volunteer in sport are 10% more likely to have higher self-esteem, emotional wellbeing and resilience compared to those who have never volunteered.
Follow this link to download the Hidden Diamonds findings
parkrun UK Volunteers Research
An academic research paper, published in the European Journal of Marketing, found that the way people volunteer with parkrun creates a real sense of community.
The findings should be of interest to any nonprofit organisation who is trying to recruit more volunteers to underpin the delivery of their service or intervention. It shows that recruitment and retention improves if an organisation creates a strong sense of community, helps people identify with the activity and organisation, makes it easy and flexible to volunteer, and ensures the volunteers know how much of a difference they make to the local community in which they live.
Sport England Volunteering Q&A
Covering volunteering and the law, health and safety and safeguarding, Sport England have compiled a series of questions and answers designed to help your organisation or project achieve its goals while creating a more enjoyable, meaningful volunteering experience for all.
The comprehensive list of questions are split into seven separate sections: getting started, volunteering and the law, safeguarding & health and safety, diversity, support, planning and organising, and dealing with issues.
Recruiting and Developing Volunteers
Buddle Resources
Sport England have developed Buddle, free learning and support resources, to inspire and strengthen clubs and community organisations offering sport and physical activity, and the professionals that work with them. Buddle offers several resources to help support you with recruiting volunteers and developing volunteers within your club or organisation.
Developing your volunteers not only enables you to demonstrate how much you value and appreciate them, but it will help ensure their experience is positive, help keep them motivated and committed, and will also give them the skills they need to run your organisation effectively.
Follow this link to view the Buddle resources
Local Resources
For clubs wanting to promote their volunteering opportunities and for those of you looking to volunteer within the sport and physical activity sector, we recommend using the following websites to upload and search for opportunities:
Recognise and Celebrate Volunteers
Active Kent & Medway invite you to celebrate the volunteers that are making a difference in your clubs and organisations so we can recognise these incredible people and the fantastic contribution they make to our local communities.
Is there someone you know who has made an outstanding contribution in the past year? Maybe they’ve helped maintain a facility? Supported coaching sessions? Organised fundraising events? Helped keep members informed? Encouraged others to try a new sport/activity? We’d love to hear from you so we can celebrate their achievements on our social media channels.
Contact Us
If you’d like to discuss any of the above articles or would like any more information, please get in touch by emailing activekent@kent.gov.uk and one of the team will get back to you as soon as possible.