Creating an Event Volunteering Legacy: The 2014 Host City Volunteer Initiative

Abstract

This article examines why as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Glasgow Life failed to achieve its aspired legacy of promoting further volunteering by Host City Volunteers (HCVs) despite the implementation of best practice. This practice included providing dedicated funding of a volunteer legacy program, supporting recruitment from groups generally underrepresented among regular volunteers, and the provision of a dedicated team to support HCVs before, during, and after the event. Drawing on research conducted at the time of the event and a follow up study 3 years later, the article suggests that the absence of such legacy arose because, although highly motivated by the one-off prestigious event, the event volunteers were less motivated by other opportunities, many of those involved as event volunteers were already committed volunteers, and were reluctant to take over responsibility for engaging with future volunteering opportunities. The article considers the wider implications for future event managers seeking to generate volunteering legacies as part of major events. In so doing, it underlines that despite the scheme being constructed around the key characteristics of the much-lauded benchmark model of event volunteering associated with the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games volunteering legacies cannot be guaranteed. Even when there is success in engaging with people markedly different to the common type of event volunteer in underrepresented communities, translating their enthusiasm into postevent volunteering is problematic.