Managing voluntary sport organizations to facilitate volunteer recruitment

Abstract

The majority of voluntary sport organizations find it difficult to recruit volunteers, and many even regard volunteer recruitment as their main challenge. Against this background, this paper investigates management characteristics that can facilitate volunteer recruitment. Building on theory and using the scarce empirical data on the management of sport organizations, five hypotheses are formulated and subsequently tested against a large survey study on volunteering in Danish sport organizations. The results provide support for all of the five hypotheses with regard to the recruitment of volunteers for both formal positions and ad hoc tasks. Hence, in order to facilitate volunteer recruitment, sport organizations can generally be recommended to: (1) involve members in major decisions, (2) delegate decision-making and tasks across multiple committees and volunteers, (3) recognize volunteers by granting them perks and material incentives, (4) formulate a specific strategy describing how to recruit volunteers, and (5) employ electronic modes of communicating.