sports. With lockdowns closing clubs, cancelling and postponing tournaments and preventing team activities, many volunteers have drifted away. A national survey by AusPlay has revealed that the sporting volunteer workforce has declined by tens of thousands because of the pandemic. Many volunteer organisations are also anxious about the fall of volunteer participation in the last two years due to several barriers in volunteer recruitment and retention. Another survey commissioned by the Australian Sports Foundation found that almost all of Australia’s 70,000 community sports clubs have lost money during the pandemic. Thousands of them face the threat of going under. One in 10 clubs fears insolvency and half of all clubs are having problems finding volunteers. In 2020, Australian Sports Commission/Sport Australia then acting Chief Executive Rob Dalton described the problem as “really serious” and fears that people will “disappear from sport” if volunteers continue to be lost.
Arresting the Decline Ashlea Block explores the decline of volunteers in community sports and how clubs can get them back
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ach year in Australia, 8.5 million adults aged 15+ and 3.4 million children aged 0-14 take part in organised sport. According to AusPlay, that equates to 40% of all adults and 69% of children. It’s a staggering figure - and nearly all these sporting activities rely on volunteers; from coaches and club officials to referees and umpires. Volunteers are critical for the continuation of organised sports. In total, there are 1.6 million men and 1.3 million women volunteering in sport in Australia - equivalent to 14% of the population. Football has the highest number of volunteers (467,000), followed by Australian rules (374,000) and netball (305,000). Sports Australia estimates their value at $4 billion a year. AusPlay data reveals that 774,000 volunteers also took on multiple roles within the club system. Most people who volunteer in a sport have a strong connection to that sport, either playing themselves or having children who play. The impact of COVID The COVID pandemic has been catastrophic for community
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Fighting the decline: the role of technology Community sport couldn’t exist without volunteers. But many volunteers lost during the pandemic may not return. One of the issues is the sheer amount of admin and inefficiency that organisers have to deal with. To get people back out into their communities and sporting clubs, it’s crucial to deliver a better volunteering experience. This is where technology can play a key role. The need for sport to digitally disrupt was identified long before COVID. Back in 2016, the ASC’s Connecting Digital and Technology with Australia’s Competitive Sport Obsession report warned that “Digital disruption is coming and sport is dropping behind”. It observed that while it’s easy for people to shop, bank, listen to music, socialise, commute and communicate online, “why is interacting with sport so much harder?” Three ways in which technology could transform sport were identified: -Delivering personalised sport experiences for all Australians -Streamlining sport delivery and operations and driving efficiencies -Creating new sport experiences and commercial opportunities How technology can encourage and enable volunteers 1. Digitising admin With COVID accelerating the use of digital platforms and automation in the workplace, people are less willing to waste their leisure time on old-style admin, clunky legacy systems, and vast paper archives spilling out of the clubhouse cupboard. Available time can be the greatest barrier to volunteer
