Developing Sports Volunteering

As universally recognised, sports development would not be possible without the critical support of millions of volunteers around the world. Volunteers perform a range of functions from executives to board members, coaches, referees, and technical personnel. This chapter discusses key trends and challenges confronting the voluntary sport sector in combination with different strategies for developing and sustaining its volunteers. To do this, the chapter first unpacks conventional approaches to managing volunteers in sport, before problematising concerns of and strategies for volunteer production. The role, provision, and importance of learning in volunteer development are then discussed, and voluntary sport contexts are presented as valuable educational and potentially transformative spaces, given the appropriate scaffolding. The chapter ends by considering inequalities in sport volunteering in relation to its most significant determinants: socio-economic background and gender.