Government strategy and funding for sport volunteers

At the end of 2015, the UK Government published Sporting Future: A new strategy for an active nation. This strategy marked the biggest shift in Government policy on sport in more than a decade, and it actually mentions sport volunteering. It recognises that volunteering enriches the life of the volunteer and not just the participants whose sport activity is facilitated – “the double benefit of sport volunteering”. The Government wants to encourage sport and physical activity volunteering for its own sake and the strategy includes a case study on volunteering at parkrun, recognising that …..

parkrun has established a new model for community sport volunteering which puts the volunteer centre stage.

This case study makes me punch the air because it fits with what I have been getting excited about for years, see It’s an honour to volunteer for parkrun and parkrun volunteers get cold fingers and toes and a warm feeling inside.

Volunteers in high vis jackets being briefed ready to help at a parkrun

The strategy also recognises the importance of recruiting, retaining and rewarding volunteers who are representative of the entire population. It mentions a better online system for brokering sport volunteering opportunities (Consortium takes over Join In) and I am optimistic that it also means more recognition of the skills needed for volunteer management.

In response to Sporting Future, Sport England published its Volunteering Strategy in December 2016: Volunteering in an active nation. I had an opportunity to contribute ideas to this strategy and this is what I said:

My ideas on what works well for managing volunteers:

  • Focus on positives and benefits that volunteers gain by their actions; avoid talking about volunteering in terms of “giving up”, “making sacrifices” etc
  • Look after them as real people and manage them professionally
  • Simplify and standardise the processes for people to offer to volunteer – parkrun is great example
  • Value volunteer management and help people do it well
  • Celebrate the achievements of volunteers
  • Break traditional volunteer roles into chunks; encourage job-sharing

My ideas on volunteering by under-represented groups and young people

  • Nationally lots of youth organisations are focussing on mental health and there is big opportunity to improve wellbeing and raise aspirations through volunteering and/or youth social action
  • Effective work with under-represented groups needs partners on the ground who have prior relationships with the target volunteers
  • Activities need to be done with young people not done to young people
  • Best to offer a mix of activities, and to locate the volunteering in the communities as lack of transport is a barrier
  • To focus on physical activities rather than sport coaching we need people who empathise with beginners rather than coaches who want to develop elite players – need more organisers and activators
  • Empower and incentivise younger officials/club organisers. Help clubs welcome young energy and ideas that are often obstructed by an ageing, dogmatic workforce (easy to say, hard to do)

Where are we now?

  • Sport England has two funds supporting volunteering: The Opportunity Fund (targets people, aged 20+, from economically disadvantaged communities) and The Potentials Fund (targets children and young people aged 10 to 20, with a particular focus on 10-14 year-olds, who are interested in doing something to benefit their community, through social action.) Expressions of interest in the first round of these funds are now closed. See Volunteer Funding Investment Guide for more information. Sport England is making up to £26 million over 4 years available to support implementation of their Volunteering in an active nation strategy.
  • You can find a volunteering opportunity or post your volunteering opportunities on Join In
  • Sport England gives some very useful advice for volunteer managers here: Volunteering explained
  • The first Annual Report on Sporting Future was published in February this year.

The first Annual Report on Sporting Future

This 40-page report has a succinct and positive message for the future of sport volunteering. Copied below.

“Volunteering

4.32 Sporting Future takes a new approach to volunteering, recognising the positive impact it has on volunteers themselves as well as the benefits to sports and the importance of recruiting, retaining and rewarding volunteers who are representative of the entire population.

A new volunteering strategy

4.33. Sport England published its new volunteering strategy on 1 December 2016. The strategy’s objectives are to:

  • ensure better quality, meaningful volunteering experiences
  • increase the diversity of those who volunteer in sport and activity
  • increase the number of volunteers in sport and activity

Sport England is making up to £26 million over 4 years available to support implementation of this strategy.

Information about volunteering opportunities

4.34 In its volunteering strategy Sport England recognises and promotes the crucial role that digital communications can play as an enabler to increase the number and diversity of sport volunteers. As this strategy is implemented in 2017 and beyond Sport England will consider how it can best support the use of digital technology in sport volunteering.

Employee volunteering

4.35 Sport England will work with other agencies to increase the number of sport and physical activity volunteering opportunities that can be taken up by employees.

Rewards for volunteers

4.36 A joint Sport England/UK Sport review shows that national governing bodies generally engage regular volunteers from the grassroots as volunteers at major events they are hosting. UK Sport will encourage this practice to continue through its application and award process for major events funding. Support for national governing bodies on this is covered in Sport England’s volunteering strategy and both UK Sport and Sport England will be sharing best practice.”

The future

I am waiting with interest to see the outcome of the first Sport England Funding round and to see what types of projects were funded and which partners Sport England chose to work with. This will help us all understand funding priorities for subsequent rounds.

I am also eagerly awaiting developments with the new Join In Consortium under the Sport and Recreation Alliance and I really hope that we get good volunteer brokering functionality that really does “make sport and recreation volunteering more representative and accessible”. The parkrun volunteer system works, and has worked well for years. It is simple and enables participants to put their hand up for a specific job on a specific day and for local teams to manage their own volunteer roster. If you are not familiar with parkrun, you can see how it works here: volunteer at Guildford junior parkrun.

How do you manage a mix of volunteers?

So you’ve worked hard recruiting volunteers for your big sports event. You’ve got local people engaged, maybe some volunteers who have helped at other big events, and you’ve got the regular bunch of helpers who know your sport inside out. How do you throw all of these people at an event and make sure it works? How do you manage a mix of volunteers with different backgrounds and experiences? This is how we did it at the World Orienteering Championships held in Scotland in  2015.

We appointed Team Leaders to manage specific functions. Some of these Leaders were sport specialists and others had specific technical skills. Each of these “Functional Team Leaders” managed a strand of the event delivery. They knew their function in detail and they were supported by the Volunteer Management Team who took care of all generic volunteer administration and communications. Here is how the Volunteer Management Team confirmed the process and responsibilities with the Functional Team Leaders:

Functional team leaders responsibilities for volunteers Functional team leaders responsibilities for volunteers2 Functional team leaders responsibilities for volunteers3

Want to join in and help with a local sport event?

Saturday 27th July 2013 is the anniversary of the London Olympic Games opening ceremony. If you were inspired by the Olympic Volunteers a year ago, do you want to dip your toe in the water of volunteering now? No big commitment. No long journey. If you do, Join In UK has the answer by offering you a way to find a sports even near you that needs some helpers. There are more 10,000 events to choose from all between July 27th to Sept 9th.

I was lucky enough to be at the Olympic Park for the launch and I recommend you watch this video now for some inspiration!

And you can listen to Dave Moorcroft (Director of Join In Local) talking to Danny Norman of parkrun.

If you want to be part of the Olympic Games volunteering legacy, then Join In is the place to start. And if you are a club or group looking for volunteers you can register here.

Glasgow2014 reminding me of the excitement of volunteering

I’ve just been invited for an interview for the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow next year. And when that message landed in my inbox I felt a buzz. I am one of the 50,000 who had applied to volunteer at Glasgow2014 (and I’ve been an Olympic Games Maker so I know the routine) and yet I was surprised and really very excited by an e-mail called “Interview Invitation”.

As a Volunteer Manager, I’m more used to being the person who does the inviting. And when we contact our would-be volunteers, even though we are approaching registered volunteers – and not cold-calling random people – it is easy to think that we are intruding on their time. Why are we so hesitant to ask for help? What makes us reluctant to make a request? After all, we are taking up an offer they have previously made.

Volunteer Managers – be bold; be confident; be positive! Remember we are making the contact that our volunteers have been waiting for. We cannot guess what motivated them to offer: we shouldn’t make assumptions about their response. We should speak to every volunteer as if we are giving them the exciting news they have been looking forward to.

There are 15,000 places for the 50,000 applicants. Will I make it through? Watch this space!

 

 

Do you have a dream or a plan?

Be inspired by Simon Sinek’s view in How great leaders inspire action that ….

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

What applies to business is even more important for recruiting in the voluntary sector – so we should start with “Why”. Volunteers, Sinek says, buy into why you do something, not what you do.

Organisations looking for volunteers and volunteer managers everywhere – talk about what you believe in. Talk about your dreams if you want to attract those who agree with you.

In 2013, will you be selling “I have a dream” or I have a plan?

 

Sports clubs – looking for new volunteers?

Is your Clubmark club seeking new helpers?

Here are two sources of young volunteers that you may not know about:

  1. Young people taking Duke of Edinburgh programmes
  2. Students taking community sports leadership courses
DofE (Duke of Edinburgh) programmes are run by Schools, Further Education Colleges and other groups. You probably know that young people go on an expedition as part of the award. But you may not be aware that the award also has physical, skills and volunteering components. Young people do regular, long term stints as volunteers:
  • 3 months volunteering for Bronze – aged 14+
  • 6 months for Silver – aged 15+
  • 12 months for Gold  – aged 16+

There is a very helpful DofE website.

Sports Leadership courses are run by Schools, Colleges and Universities. Here is an example of courses.

How do you go about finding these volunteers?

Firstly, enquire among your own membership to see if there are any family members who would be interested in doing their volunteering with your club. It’s always easiest to start with people who know you and know what you do.

Secondly, it is worth building up a relationship with local organisations that deliver DofE and Sports Leadership courses. Bear in mind that DofE and education course programmes run to strict annual timetables and the students will be required to do their volunteering in a specified time window. So clubs need to plan ahead. Don’t expect an e-mail this week to generate a group of helpers for your event next weekend!

To start with, you are best to contact your local school or college – for attention of person in charge of DofE or Sports Leadership training – and let them know briefly:

  • the name and location of your club
  • what type of activities you organise
  • what regular volunteering opportunities arise
  • the likely times and duration of these opportunities
  • an e-mail and mobile contact number for the volunteer coordinator
  • the club’s website address

If you manage to make contact with the right person you can ask them about their needs and, most importantly, their time-scale. The ideal situation for a club to be in, is to be ready to give relevant information at just the right time for it to be distributed to potential volunteers.

Are you worried about what to say to students? Just describe your volunteer roles in language they will understand – and don’t assume they know anything about your club or sport. And be aware that they will be much more interested if they can work in pairs or small groups.

It might sound like a lot of trouble, but schools and colleges work on annual cycles and like to repeat what works. If you can get the right contact, build up a good working relationship and deliver worthwhile opportunities you could be setting up a system that runs for years.

And, while these young people may start as volunteers, their experiences with you may turn them into participants, members or even ambassadors for your sport. So make sure you look after them well.

CRB checks – new name – new system

It is good news for volunteers that CRB checks are to become portable. So if you have a CRB (Criminal Record Bureau) check for one charity, school, club or job you can use it for another. This change will save volunteers time and inconvenience and save taxpayer money.

The CRB has now been replaced by Disclosure and Barring Service and so checks in future will be known as DBS checks.

See further information from the Home Office.

Are you new to working with volunteers?

Have you just taken on a new job – paid or voluntary – where you work with people who are  doing their roles as volunteers? If so, this is for you:

Time and energy

When you are planning – whether its a project, an event, or a new direction – make sure you build in extra capacity because it will likely take more people and more time than you think you need.

Is it that volunteers are naturally inefficient? Not at all! Your supporting team will be fitting their volunteering around both work and family commitments and when unexpected things happen and take up their time, it is their volunteering that gets put on hold. Expect the unexpected! Get things done ahead if you can and allow a longer lead time to deadlines. And recruit a few more people – say 10% more – than you think you need  It makes for less stress if you do.

What do you know?

Your volunteers probably know less than you think. Make them feel comfortable by explaining the system, showing them how things work and getting them started. They might be too shy to to ask you for help but they will thank you for putting them at ease.

Hello – how are you?

Keep in touch with your team. I don’t mean bombard them. But check how they are getting on and encourage them to talk to you regularly. You will enjoy hearing the progress updates and good news from them. And if there is bad news then it’s better to hear it sooner rather than later.

Keeny beanies

Make the most of a new volunteer’s initial zeal. Some people love a new project and will bring huge amounts of drive and enthusiasm at the outset. If you can harness this productively the volunteer will have a much better experience and be more likely to move onwards and upwards. If they experience frustration and barriers in their early days they may give up on you.

Have you got any suggestions you would like to pass on to someone just starting out working with volunteers? Please leave them in comments.