10.1 Meaning and Understanding of Sports Volunteering

Volunteering and sport volunteering in Germany have a long tradition and play an important role in German society. Historically, volunteering can be traced back to the Prussian city order (Preußische Städteordnung) from 1808, which enabled political participation for citizens, including taking on honorary positions without monetary remunerations (Ministerium für Soziales und Integration Baden-Württemberg 2017). Traditionally, volunteering in Germany occurred in the social context as an act of helping others, as illustrated, for example, by the 165-year-long volunteering tradition in the nonprofit organization “Caritas” (Caritas 2016). With regard to sports, the most prominent nonprofit organizations in Germany are nonprofit sports clubs, which also have a long tradition dating back to the 19th century (Breuer et al. 2015). In these nonprofit sports clubs, volunteering has been of major importance from the beginning, as voluntary work is one of the five constituent features of sports clubs (Heinemann and Horch 1981). In general, the act of volunteering can be related to the overarching term “civic engagement,” including other forms of active public participation such as political participation, political protest, or voluntary social activities (Heinze and Olk 2001). In the traditional form, volunteering can be translated as Ehrenamt: an honorable position which in sports clubs is reached through elections of members, typically undertaken without any form of monetary remuneration or only a small remuneration in the form of a lump-sum (Duden 2017). However, volunteering in Germany has seen a historical change or adaption: in addition to the traditional form of volunteering, more open and less structured forms of volunteering have also appeared (Olk 1987, 1989). These two types of volunteering, that is, (1) traditional volunteering and (2) a more open form of volunteering, can be characterized by the German words (1) Ehrenamt as defined above and (2) freiwillige Tätigkeit or secondary volunteers, as the informal undertaking of a voluntary activity (Werkmann 2014). The two types of volunteering differ with regard to the access to volunteering: while Ehrenamtler are elected or appointed to their position, Freiwillige might apply to be part of a voluntary workforce or simply assist when help is needed (Steinbach et al. 2017; Werkmann 2014).

The two types of volunteers can also be observed in the context of sports clubs in Germany. As such, sports clubs rely on volunteers in fixed positions, that is, at the board level or as coaches and instructors. Volunteers are elected through club members to fulfil a position at the board level. Additionally, club members get engaged in non-fixed positions as voluntary helpers. Typical activities for voluntary helpers include driving youth teams to competitions, preparing cakes, or supporting the coaches at sport festivals (Breuer and Feiler 2017a). In Germany, approximately 13% of all sports club members are engaged as a volunteer in a fixed position and 17% in non-fixed positions (Breuer et al. 2017).

In addition to volunteers in sports clubs, people get engaged as volunteers at sport events. In the context of sport events, a third term for volunteers has evolved in German: Volunteers (the English term integrated into German vocabulary). Volunteers at sport events typically get engaged in a short-term and nonstructured way. In contrast to fixed positions in sports clubs, more than one volunteer can participate in an activity at sport events, for example, showing event visitors the way to the facilities (Werkmann 2014). These three terms Ehrenamtler, Freiwillige, and Volunteers show a clear distinction of different forms of volunteering in Germany. The literature generally classifies volunteerism into continuous and episodic volunteering (Hustinx and Lammertyn 2004; Wilson 2012). Thereby, the continuous volunteering of Ehrenamtler can be separated from episodic volunteering of Freiwillige and Volunteers.

To get people engaged in voluntary activities, monetary and non-monetary incentives have been introduced. Individuals who participate in voluntary activities in organizations of the civil society (i.e., sports, culture, health, and environment) can receive a financial remuneration of up to 720 EUR per year tax-free (Verein für soziales Leben e.V. 2017). In addition, volunteers who are engaged in a coaching position – for example, as a coach of a sport team – can receive a payment of up to 2,400 EUR per year tax-free. However, these two tax-free allowances cannot be added up for one single activity.

10.2 Volunteer Workforce in Germany

The volunteer workforce in Germany is assessed by the “Volunteer Survey (Freiwilligensurvey),” a survey of volunteers that has been conducted every five years since 1999, with the fourth and most recent from the year 2014 (Simonson et al. 2017). Overall, the share of people being engaged in voluntary activities has increased over the last 15 years. In 2014, 43.6% of the German population over 14 years stated they participated in voluntary activities. This amounts to a volunteer workforce of 30.9 million people. Women were slightly less active, with a volunteer rate of 41.5% compared to men with 45.7%. However, women have increased their voluntary activities between 1999 and 2014 more than men. The highest volunteer rates occurred in the age groups of 14-29 years old and 30-49 years old. Moreover, people with a higher education were found to be more engaged than people with a lower educational level. Furthermore, the highest share of volunteers were engaged in sports and physical activities (16.3%), followed by schools or kindergartens (9.1%) and culture and music (9.0%). More than half of the volunteers were engaged in clubs or associations, followed by activities in individually organized groups, church or religious groups, other formal institutions, and municipal or other public institutions. The survey revealed that the share of volunteers was higher in rural areas than in urban areas and particularly large cities in Germany. Furthermore, there are still differences between West and East Germany. People living in West Germany were found to be more engaged than the people living in East Germany (44.8% vs. 38.5%). Furthermore, the share of older citizens seemed to increase more rapidly in East Germany due to lower birth rates and higher life expectancy. However, the volunteer rates in the East have increased at a higher rate since 1999 than in the West (Simonson et al. 2017).

Apart from the individual level, volunteering in Germany has been assessed from the organizational point of view by the “Civic Population Survey” (Zivilgesellschaft in Zahlen [ZiviZ]; Priemer et al. 2017) and the Sport Development Report (Breuer 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017). The ZiviZ surveys consider all organizations that are engaged in civil society, meaning political, social, and leisure organizations outside of the governmental and private sector. In contrast, the Sport Development Report focuses on sports clubs specifically. In all, more than 600,000 nonprofit clubs exist in Germany for various purposes (e.g., sport, culture, health, local history). This makes clubs the dominant legal form in civil society (in German: eingetragener Verein [e.V.]). The majority of organizations (72%) in the civil society relies solely on volunteers and does not employ paid staff (Priemer et al. 2017).

Of the 600,000 nonprofit clubs in Germany, around 90,000 are nonprofit sports clubs (DOSB 2017). These sports clubs rely heavily on volunteers as only one in ten clubs is reported to employ paid staff (Krimmer 2016). The Sport Development Report has found that approximately 1.7 million volunteers were engaged in sports clubs in 2015. However, this number only includes volunteers in fixed positions. Additionally, 23% of sports club members (6.3 million) reported they were engaged in a form of informal volunteering. By adding the number of individuals engaged in non-fixed positions, the total number of volunteers in sports clubs increases to eight million. Taking a closer look at fixed positions in sports clubs, it becomes evident that more men become engaged in sports volunteering in Germany than women. While 1.2 million men took on a fixed position in a sports club in 2015 (i.e., as board member), only 0.5 million women became involved in these kinds of activities (Breuer and Feiler 2017a). However, it has to be noted that there are also more male members in sports clubs in Germany than female members (DOSB 2017). Volunteers in sports clubs spent on average 13.4 hours per month for their voluntary work. That accumulates to 22.9 million hours per month on a national level. These working hours by volunteers amounted to a monthly national added value of 343 million EUR, respectively, 4.1 billion EUR per year (Breuer and Feiler 2017a). As volunteers present a substantial and valuable workforce for sports clubs, it is important to identify strategies to recruit and retain them.

It seems therefore problematic that over the last 10 years, especially sport and leisure clubs have reported increasing difficulties in attracting new volunteers and keeping their existing volunteers engaged (Breuer and Feiler 2017b; Krimmer 2016). In comparison to other organizations of the civil society, sports clubs were found to have larger difficulties in recruiting and retaining volunteers (Breuer and Feiler 2017a; Krimmer 2016). In this regard, 51% of sports clubs perceived the problem of recruiting and retaining volunteers in administrative positions to be a big or even very big problem. The extent of the problem has increased significantly in comparison to the previous wave of the Sport Development Report. Overall, 14.3% of sports clubs were threatened in their existence by the problem of recruiting and retaining voluntary board members (Breuer and Feiler 2017a). It appears that German sports clubs are more strongly affected by this challenge than sports clubs in other European countries, as sports clubs in Germany rated the recruitment problem as more severe than clubs in any other country (Breuer et al. 2017).

To attract new volunteers and to keep existing volunteers engaged, German sports clubs were found to take on different initiatives and incentives and thereby appreciate the work of their volunteers. Overall, sports clubs made more use of any kind of remuneration and incentives than any other form of civil organization (Krimmer 2016). The most common way to approach volunteers was through personal contact: 70.4% of sports clubs reported to use this measure for volunteer recruitment and retention. Moreover, clubs stated they organize social festivities to create a community feeling (62.5%), to recruit with the help of existing volunteers (54.7%), and to offer extra qualifications (40.6%; Breuer and Feiler 2017a). Furthermore, sports clubs were found to compensate the lack of volunteers through employing more secondary volunteers (i.e., volunteers in non-fixed positions), low-cost employees, and paid staff (Breuer et al. 2012). Table 10.1 provides an overview about the characteristics of the volunteer workforce in Germany.

Table 10.1 Germany’s volunteer characteristics
Full size table

While the perceived problem of attracting volunteers in sports clubs has increased over the measurement period of the Sport Development Report (Breuer and Feiler 2017b), the actual numbers of formal volunteers have not changed significantly during the last period, that is, since 2013 (Breuer and Feiler 2017a). In contrast, a high level of continuity in sport volunteers has been identified (Krimmer 2016). Only the number of informal (i.e., secondary) volunteers in sports clubs have decreased slightly between 2013 and 2015 (-4.4%; Breuer and Feiler 2017a). However, previous studies have detected a change in the nature of volunteering. The sport-specific evaluation of the “Volunteer Survey” (Freiwilligensurvey) discovered that the share of volunteers in administrative positions and at the board level has decreased from 38% in 1999 to 34% in 2009, while the number of sports clubs has increased during the same period of time. Furthermore, the volunteer workforce in administrative positions seems to have become older. The share of over-70-year-olds among all volunteers in administrative or leadership positions in sports clubs has almost doubled between 1999 and 2009 (from 5.2% to 11.6%), while the share of the 30-39-year-olds has considerably decreased during the same time frame (from about 40% to roughly 24% within this age group; Braun 2011). It appears that volunteering in Germany is undergoing a structural change with people being more interested in short-term, project-oriented engagement that fits their biographies (Braun 2017). This challenge needs to be addressed by sports clubs and sports organizations, for example, through specific volunteer management (see also Sect. 10.3). An example for a “good practice” in terms of volunteer management in sports clubs is the TSG Bergedorf in Hamburg which is a large sports club with about 10,000 members and a variety of different sport offers. This club has appointed a person who is specifically in charge of recruiting and retaining volunteers. To facilitate an easy start for new, potential volunteers, the club organizes an introductory week, including different activities like seminars and visits to different sporting venues. Moreover, the club encourages volunteers to use qualification offers, for example, in terms of licenses and certificates. As a special motivation for volunteers, the club nominates a “volunteer of the month” to show special appreciation (Feiler et al. 2017). It has to be noted that it might be more difficult for smaller and less professionally run clubs to adapt such measures, but small clubs also need to find a way to address the problem of decreasing volunteers. Giving people the chance to bring in their own ideas might be a good and easy start to address this challenge.

In light of the above-described structural change in volunteering in sports clubs, short-term volunteering is increasingly becoming popular in Germany. One possibility to be engaged in short-term volunteering is taking part as a volunteer at sport events. In contrast to sports club volunteers, sport event volunteers can be characterized as informal volunteers engaged in short-term activities (Werkmann 2014). The number of sport event volunteers fluctuates based on the occurrence of sport events in Germany. Thus, there are no annual numbers available for Germany. However, it seems that volunteering at sport events is very attractive for German citizens. For example, more than 15,000 people applied for around 3,000 volunteer positions at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in Germany (Werkmann 2014). At the 2017 Ice Hockey World Championships held in Cologne and Paris, more than 1,000 people applied to take part as one of the 600 volunteers (Eishockey News 2016). Moreover, the city of Düsseldorf reported having no problems filling their volunteer positions at the 2017 Tour de France Grand Départ, as 2,640 people registered to volunteer at the two-day event (Stadt Düsseldorf 2017). Thus, it seems there is no problem in activating German citizens to get engaged as volunteers when mega sport events take place in their city or region.

10.3 Volunteer Management in Sports

The problem of decreasing numbers of “traditional” sport volunteers has not only been identified by sports clubs but also by the German Olympic Sports Confederation (Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund [DOSB]). The DOSB has introduced several initiatives and incentives to get people engaged in sport volunteering. The initiative “Attractive Volunteering in Sport” provides sports clubs with best practice examples of collaborations between sports organizations and volunteer organizations (DOSB 2015a). Sports clubs are teamed up with volunteer organizations and senior citizens organizations to share knowledge on volunteer recruitment and retention and to get especially senior citizens engaged. This collaboration aims to support clubs in identifying potential future volunteers who are willing to take on volunteer positions at the administrative level. Furthermore, the DOSB aims to increase the appreciation of volunteers in sport. The “Sport Volunteer Card” (Sportehrenamtskarte) has been introduced to offer volunteers discounts in museums, zoos, sport events, etc. (DOSB 2015b). Volunteers who show a very high level of engagement can additionally receive the “Sport Identity Card” (Sportausweis), which offers multifunctional benefits for the individual volunteers by the national business partners of the DOSB. In addition, volunteers can receive certificates for their voluntary engagement to showcase their social skills and activities which can be an advantage in job applications and interviews.

Another pillar of the recognition of volunteers’ work and the development of their skills is the qualification system of the DOSB (DOSB 2015b). The qualification system consists of four steps: the first step consists of licenses for coaches, youth leaders, and club managers at the basic level. The second, third, and fourth steps offer further licenses that build on the previous steps and provide the opportunity for volunteers to extend and amplify their skills. The licenses support volunteers in their functional, methodological, educational, strategic, personal, and social skills. Furthermore, volunteers get coached in societal issues such as gender equity, diversity management, prevention of sexual harassment and violence, and environmental protection. These qualifications enable volunteers to extend their knowledge and showcase their abilities to others. In addition to licenses offered by the DOSB, volunteers have the opportunity to attend seminars and workshops at the Leadership Academy of the DOSB (Führungsakademie des DOSB), where they can extend their competences in the fields of professional expertise, management skills, and leadership and personal skills (Führungsakademie 2017). These seminars are specifically aimed at volunteers and employees engaged in administrative and board positions.

Further initiatives have been introduced aimed especially at youth volunteers in sport. For example, the regional sport confederation in North Rhine-Westphalia (Landessportbund NRW) offers a one-year scholarship for young volunteers between the ages of 16 and 26 years. Volunteers can get a monthly financial support of 200 EUR for their voluntary activities in sports clubs (Landessportbund NRW 2017). Furthermore, young adults can spend between six and 18 months focusing purely on their voluntary activities during a voluntary gap year in sport (Freiwilliges soziales Jahr im Sport). During this year, young volunteers work for a sports organization (e.g., sports club, federation, sport school, youth accommodation, or physical education kindergarten) full time and receive a monthly financial compensation by the regional sport confederation. This program is supported by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend [BMFSFJ]) and the German Sport Youth (Deutsche Sportjugend [dsj]) (dsj 2017b). The dsj additionally offers a qualification program for young volunteers, the “dsj academy,” which aims to develop the skills and knowledge of young volunteers such as team work, networking, and communication through the support of experts in the field (dsj 2017a).

10.4 Volunteering, State, and Civil Society

As already described in Section 10.1, the German government supports financial incentives for volunteering through tax-free allowances. In addition, volunteers engaged in sports clubs are covered under the club’s insurance offered by the regional sports confederations. This includes not only the activity of volunteers at the clubs but also the commute to and from the club. However, volunteers do not only enjoy legal benefits. To be able to work with children and adolescents, volunteers are required to provide a certificate of good conduct to prevent sexual harassment and violence (DOSB 2015b).

While sport policy in Germany is under the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the matter of civic engagement and volunteering, that is, engagement policy, is subject to support by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth ([BMFSFJ], BMFSFJ 2016). A wide range of initiatives and programs is supported by the BMFSFJ, including civic engagement related to sports. Initiatives on volunteering in general that are directly supported by the federal ministry include mentoring and partnership programs, volunteering in all generations, the internet presence “engaged in Germany,” the annual “week of volunteering,” and the “German volunteering prize.” These initiatives are meant to foster voluntary rates and show appreciation of the volunteers’ engagement. For instance, the German volunteering prize is awarded annually in five categories: creating opportunities, saving lives, connecting generations, overcoming barriers, and strengthening democracy (Deutscher Engagementpreis 2017). The winner of each category is selected by a jury and awarded with 5,000 EUR. In addition, public voting was installed to select a public winner, who is awarded with 10,000 EUR.

Furthermore, the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth supports research into volunteering in Germany, such as the Volunteer Survey (Simonson et al. 2017), and collaborations with the DOSB, such as the project “Attractive Volunteering in Sport” (DOSB 2015a). The guideline “collaboration of paid staff and volunteers” aims to provide practitioners with tips and insights on how to improve the joint work of paid staff and volunteers and thus increase the willingness to get engaged (Schumacher 2015).

10.5 Conclusion

This chapter aimed to give an overview of the meaning and societal role of volunteering and particularly sport volunteering in Germany. Generally, volunteering is an important part of German culture, as Germany is also known as the country of nonprofit (sports) clubs. Within the third sector in Germany, more than 600,000 clubs exist, of which roughly 90,000 are sports clubs. Throughout nonprofit organizations in Germany, voluntary work is essential since only a few organizations have paid employees. This particularly applies to nonprofit sports clubs. These sports clubs form the basis of the German sport system and thereby allow following sport-for-all policies. Without sports clubs, neither elite sports nor grassroots sports would exist. Voluntary work is one of the key elements for the successful operation of sports clubs since clubs could not exist without the enormous workload that volunteers cover in their leisure time. Thus, without volunteering, Germany would be a country without sports clubs and sport events which underline the enormous role of volunteers for German society and culture.