Congratulations and welcome to your new role as a Volunteer Co-ordinator. This is such an important role within a sporting club. Community Sporting Clubs cannot survive without volunteers, in fact they make up the largest volunteer sector in Australia. You have been selected for this role because your club has deemed that you have the necessary skills and abilities (or to be honest, it could be because no one else would do it). Either way this a great opportunity to help shape your club and ensure it thrives into the future.
Depending on the size of a club, the role of a Volunteer Co-ordinator could be performed by one person or a small team of people. How a small team would work is up to you. You could have someone that looks after Recruiting, another looks after Training and the third Recognising volunteers. Or I know of some clubs who have someone that performs all these roles for coaches, another for officials and a third person looks after canteen and bar staff. It really depends on your club. If you want to discuss the best structure for your club feel free to email me and we can chat.
So you are probably thinking ‘where do I start?’ Good question! Having an understanding of why people volunteer, and their motivations will assist greatly in your role. If you understand what they want and how they can contribute will assist you in the co-ordination of your most valuable asset, your volunteers. The Future of Sport Volunteering Research Report provides some recent finding on sport volunteers. The Australian Sports Commission has some useful volunteer resources.
Now you are probably thinking ‘Wow! Where to now?’ Below is a series of steps to get you started. I have also created a number of templates that you can download to make it easier to gather the information you need.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, that’s okay. Take a deep breath. Now remember you are a “Volunteer Co-ordinator” so if you need to ‘co-ordinate’ other volunteers in the club to assist you gather and prepare the information you need, do it. Delegate. The hardest part of this whole process is going to be getting everything set up in first place. But I am here to talk you through the process.
For example, it is unrealistic to expect you to personally develop all the roles descriptions for every position because chances are you do not know what ever other volunteer in the club does. So ask them to write down their key roles and then you can ‘wordsmith’ them and cut and paste into a role description template. Another important thing to remember is that there are already so many role descriptions available on internet for common volunteer roles such as president, secretary and treasurer. So don’t recreate the wheel. Simply print one off and give it to the volunteer asking them if this covers their role or if anything needs to be added, modified or removed.
The next Steps:
STEP 1: What is your clubs current volunteer situation? (Who are they? What do they do? How do they find the role and how much time do they spend doing the role?). [Refer to template ‘TEMPLATE Who are our Current Volunteers‘]
STEP 2: Identify volunteer roles needed (are your existing volunteer roles still required, what other roles does your club need?). [Refer to “‘Volunteer Role Ideas‘]. I suggest you brainstorm ideas with your committee, existing volunteers and members. If you have a Strategic Plan have a look at that because you may find a role could be created to assist in the Plan’s implementation. For example, your club may have a strategy in your Strategic Plan about developing club merchandise – someone will need to co-ordinate this and take orders – voilà you now need a new volunteer role, a Merchandise Officer.
STEP 3: So now you know who your current volunteers are, your existing volunteer roles and identified new roles that are needed. It is now time to develop role descriptions [refer to ‘What to include a Volunteer Role Description‘].
STEP 4: Now is the time to recruit for the any new volunteer roles and perhaps (if required) talking to volunteers who currently fill roles that are no longer required. This could be quite a difficult conversation, so it is important to be sensitive and offer alternative roles that are in line with the direction the club is heading.
STEP 5: Keep a record of all volunteers, their roles and who holds these roles each year. This can be recorded through Excel, Access, Word, hardcopy etc. Whichever way you record volunteers and their contributions, make sure it is stored securely (for privacy) and can be accessed by only a few key people in the club (in case you win the x-lotto tomorrow and go on an overseas holiday for a few years). I know one club that had 40 years of records (score books, minutes, AGM information etc.) at the committee member’s home – which unfortunately was lost in a bush fire. I know of another club that held their records in a box in someone’s shed and it accidentally got thrown out in a spring clean.
The next step?
Documenting your role is important for the next person that steps up to the plate (pun intended). Consider other volunteering opportunities such as micro volunteering or corporate volunteers. Volunteer Recognition is another key area to develop.
I’d love to hear how you found starting out in the role of a Volunteer Co-ordinator.
Keystone Sporting Solutions 