23.1 Meaning and Understanding of Sports Volunteering

Volunteering is a crucial element within the Swiss sports system. In Switzerland, sports clubs have existed since the beginning of the 1900s, and nowadays over 19,000 clubs include about 25% of the population. Public authorities in Switzerland usually do not initiate – apart from sports and physical activities at school – their own sports programs. Instead, sports clubs play a major role particularly in competitive, youth, and team sports and are based mainly on the voluntary engagement of their members (Stamm et al. 2015). Although some clubs also have paid staff, voluntary work is still the most important resource that allows sports clubs to offer interesting programs to their members. Sports events arranged by sports clubs, federations, or other event organizers benefit from the engagement of event volunteers. Smaller club events are usually organized completely by and with volunteers, whereas bigger events typically have a committee of paid staff that prepares the event, as well as a team of episodic volunteers during the event.

The term volunteering (“Freiwilligkeit”) is used in a broad sense in Switzerland (e.g., Ammann 2008). Besides voluntary work (where time is contributed), there are other forms of volunteering: donating money or goods that are relevant for a club, as well as donating the prestige of a certain person who can be useful for the common interest of an organization.Footnote 1 According to research on volunteering (e.g., Wilson 2000), these voluntary activities are unpaid or paid with a symbolic amount. There are only a few exceptions of volunteers receiving remuneration in larger sports organizations. Volunteers who earn less than 2,000 CHF per year do most of the work in clubs.Footnote 2

Voluntary activities are carried out for the benefit of people other than the family and have a formal character (organized or agreed). Volunteering outside of organizations usually has an informal character, whereas volunteering in (sports) organizations is considered as formal activity (Freitag et al. 2016; Lamprecht et al. 2012). In sports clubs we can further distinguish between episodic or sporadic volunteering (e.g., helping during a club event) and continuous volunteering in a position defined by the club (e.g., as a coach or as a board member). Particularly, the engagement in a board position is usually characterized by the alternative term “honorary post” (“Ehrenamt”).

Volunteers in Switzerland engage for a variety of reasons (Freitag et al. 2016; Stadelmann-Steffen et al. 2010). Overall, people do voluntary work for altruistic as well as self-oriented reasons. On the one hand, volunteers are attracted by the idea of achieving common goals together with others and want to help other people. On the other hand, they intend to develop their own experience, knowledge, and networks. Therefore, voluntary work is motivated by public spirit as well as potential personal benefits.

The principle and social value of solidarity and giving “benefit to the public” (“Gemeinnützigkeit”) have played an important role in the development of Swiss society since the beginning of the 1900s (e.g., Farago 2007). Thus, volunteering is an important promoter of social cohesion in Swiss society (Freitag 2014). 1810, the Swiss Society for Public Benefit (Schweizerische Geimeinnützige Gesellschaft) was founded. Today, this institution supports the idea of volunteering in civil society.

From the early 20th century, (sports) clubs have been voluntary organizations with democratic structures that exist because members share joint interests. It is a necessary requirement in Swiss law that clubs are organized voluntarily by members sharing a common goal and must not be oriented toward making an economic profit. Although volunteering still plays an important role in Swiss society and the rate of volunteers in sports and other fields of society is relatively high, current data show a slight reduction in volunteer engagement (Freitag et al. 2016).

23.2 Volunteer Workforce in Switzerland

According to 2016 figures of the Swiss Statistical Office, 32% of the Swiss population aged 15 and older do voluntary work outside of organizations. Twenty percent of all adults in Switzerland engage in formal activities within organizations. Taking into account that a large proportion of the population engages outside as well as within organizations, 42% of the population do voluntary work (BFS 2018a). Whereas women’s engagement is somewhat higher outside of organizations (44% vs. 41%), men are more often engaged in formal voluntary work (22% vs. 17%). The main information about volunteering in Switzerland is collected in Table 23.1.

Table 23.1 Switzerland’s volunteer characteristics
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The highest amount of voluntary work is provided in sports clubs. As mentioned above, a quarter of the Swiss population holds a membership in one of the 19,000 sports clubs. Yet, this proportion can be as high as 62% of children aged between 6 and 14 years who are members of a sports club. Swiss sports clubs rely primarily on the voluntary and nonpaid work of their members. The Swiss Statistical Office estimates that 6% of all persons aged 15 years and older conduct formal voluntary work in sports clubs in Switzerland. The survey “Sport Switzerland 2014” and the national survey of sports clubs of 2016 report a similar figure of somewhat over 5%. This amounts to approximately 335,000 volunteers, who deliver an average of 11 hours of unpaid work per month for their clubs (see Table 23.2).

Table 23.2 Extent of voluntary work in Swiss sports
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Apart from formal volunteers in “honorary positions”, clubs also count on a large number of sporadic volunteers. Although these persons do not hold a formal position, they are club members and perform voluntary work by, for example, helping with the organization of (sports) events, driving and coaching kids and athletes, revising the club’s accounts, or redecorating the clubhouse. About one-tenth of the Swiss population (615,000 persons) volunteer in this fashion for Swiss sports clubs. An additional 3% of the population volunteers during sports events without being members of the organizing club. Consequently, the 19,000 sports clubs and 230,000 sports events per year rely on approximately 1.14 million persons who are perform about 84 million hours of unpaid work for Swiss sports (Table 23.2).

23.3 Volunteer Management in Sports

The workload of the 335,000 volunteers who hold a formal position in a sports club translates into about 22,800 full-time jobs worth about two billion CHF (see Table 23.3). In addition, there are over 15,000 persons who are (partially) paid for their work efforts in the clubs. In other words, about 4% of all positions are remunerated, and the remaining 96% are honorary positions. On average, remunerated staff members work more than honorary workers (on average 46 hours compared to 11 hours per month). Therefore, 16% of all work done in the clubs is remunerated, and 84% of all work is done on a voluntary and unpaid basis.

Table 23.3 Voluntary and paid work in Swiss sports clubs
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Table 23.3 suggests that paid work has increased between 1996 and 2010 at the expense of voluntary work. During this period, the number of volunteers has decreased, and the share of paid work has increased. This development has been interpreted as a trend toward “professionalization” in sports clubs, and it was assumed in 2010 that this trend will continue in the future. This was not the case, however. Until 2016, the number of unpaid volunteers has increased again, and the number of paid and remunerated persons has decreased slightly. Even though the share of paid work is higher in 2016 than it was in 1996, it has not increased between 2010 and 2016 but decreased somewhat. In 1996, the share of remunerated and paid workers in all club staff amounted to 3%; it increased to 6% in 2010 and decreased again to 4% in 2016. A similar development can be seen with respect to the total amount of paid work: In 1996, the share of paid and remunerated work in the total workload amounted to 10%; it doubled to 20% until 2010 and decreased again to 16% until 2016.

An explanation for the increase of unpaid voluntary work between 2010 und 2016 can be found by looking at the different positions that need to be filled in the clubs (see Table 23.4). An average Swiss sports club has 18 voluntary positions that require an average of 11 hours of work per month. As can be seen from Table 23.4, however, presidents and coaches put in the most hours.

Table 23.4 Voluntary positions in Swiss sports clubs
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Between 2010 and 2016, the average number of volunteers per club has increased from 14 to 18. As the clubs did not grow during this period, we can assume that a higher number of persons have filled positions. The finding that the need for volunteers has increased slightly in all positions supports this assumption. Currently, job-sharing appears to be a viable possibility even for presidents: In 2010, there was one president per club, but this figure has increased to 1.2 in 2016, suggesting some degree of job-sharing in this position. The increase in the number of youth coaches has been particularly strong: In 2016, there was more than one additional coach per club compared to 2010. In addition, the number of coaches for adults (+0.8) and referees (+0.4) is markedly higher in 2016 than it was in 2010. Yet, the number of work hours has not changed greatly between 2010 and 2016: In 2010, volunteers put in an average of 11.6 hours per month; in 2016, this figure amounted to 10.9 hours. For youth and adult coaches, the work time has even increased by one and four hours, respectively. This suggests that job-sharing does not lead to a split-up of training sessions. Rather, training groups are diminished, or more than one coach holds training sessions jointly.

Even though the number of remunerated and paid workers in clubs has decreased in the course of the past six years, the proportion of clubs that employ paid staff has not changed significantly. As in 2010, only 3% of all clubs had fully paid staff members in 2016, and a further 12% (11% in 2010) had staff members with a part-time position or some other kind of substantial compensation (i.e., more than 2,000 CHF per year). Figure 23.1 shows that paid staff are still very rare in small clubs. Paid positions are mainly found in midsized and large clubs where it is possible to examine some trend toward professionalization: Between 2010 and 2016, the proportion of paid workers in part-time positions has increased by 3% in midsized and by 8% in large clubs.

Fig. 23.1
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Structure of paid and unpaid work in sports clubs (in percent; Source: National club study 2016 Lamprecht et al. 2017)

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It is not the proportion of clubs with paid workers but the number of paid workers per club that has decreased over the past six years. Most paid staff members are active as coaches and do not have a permanent position. Only 11% of all paid employees have a full-time position, a further 28% have a part-time job, and the rest receive some compensation for their efforts. Based on these figures, we can assume that most remunerated staff also do a great deal of voluntary work. Although many of these people receive an annual compensation of more than 2,000 CHF, the true value of their (partly voluntary) work for the clubs is probably much higher.

More information on volunteers and their motives is available in the Sport Switzerland 2014 survey (Lamprecht et al. 2014) and the Volunteering Monitor 2016 survey (Freitag et al. 2016). Among volunteers in formal positions, Swiss men aged between 30 and 59 years are overrepresented, whereas sporadic support work is mostly done by young adults aged between 15 and 29 years. In addition, volunteers in formal positions are very often fathers of families with a medium to high level of education and income from a paid job. Sporadic volunteers, on the other hand, are often still in training.

Formal as well as informal volunteers are highly satisfied with their work: 91% claim to be very content, 7% are somewhat content, and only 2% are not content with their voluntary activity for the sports club. Nine out of ten formal volunteers would accept their position if they were to choose again.

The figure discussed above underlines the continuing importance of voluntary work for sports clubs. Clubs are well aware of this important resource. In the 2016 national club survey, 76% of all clubs fully agreed with the statement “our club thrives on the voluntary involvement of its members” (Lamprecht et al. 2017).

However, voluntary work is not only the main basis of organized club sports but also one of its particularly vulnerable spots. Persons doing unpaid voluntary work are – as discussed above – highly motivated and content. Yet, at the same time, it is becoming more difficult to find motivated and qualified successors for quitting volunteers. As a result, finding and integrating volunteers are one of the most biggest challenges clubs are facing. About two-fifths of all clubs claim to have a hard time finding board members, coaches, or referees (see Fig. 23.2). In addition, many clubs depend on a small number of heavily burdened persons who cannot be replaced easily, and a third of all clubs lament an increasing “consumer attitude” among members. The problems in connection with voluntary work are particularly pressing in large clubs, in clubs that have a large proportion of children and adolescents, and in clubs from urban areas. Yet, these clubs have implemented a number of measures aiming at recruiting, integrating, leading, and managing volunteers in the course of the past few years.

Fig. 23.2
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Worries of Swiss sports clubs – proportion of clubs with respective problems (in percent; Source: National club study 2016 Lamprecht et al. 2017)

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Finally, it is important to note that despite the clubs’ worries with volunteers, it is by no means the case that no one would want to do voluntary work anymore. In fact, a third of all active members who do not yet hold a formal position could conceive filling such a position. Yet about half of these members have never been asked to become volunteers. Those who have been asked but refrained from becoming a formal volunteer did so mainly because of time constraints.

It is noteworthy, however, that even motivated members need to be convinced to volunteer or to stand for a formal position. If current volunteers are asked what finally made them agree to take a position in the club, about half mention that persons in the club had approached them. In addition, the incentive to become a volunteer can also come from friends and acquaintances, or one simply grows slowly into a formal role, starting from sporadic support work. Only a quarter of all respondents claim that their voluntary involvement started from a personal wish to become active.

23.4 Volunteering, State, and Civil Society

Sports clubs in Switzerland have always been regarded as a partial substitute for public initiatives (Stamm et al. 2015). When sports and the first sports clubs emerged, there was no central, institutional body that could play a role in shaping sports. In fact, in the absence of strong public authorities, early clubs – not only in sports but also in areas such as science, education, and politics – often took over official functions. Sports clubs and other clubs are thus, to some extent, a private and officially encouraged alternative to public interventions, and they have become an important feature of Swiss civil society. Consequently, the public civil society sector is relatively small compared to other countries (e.g., the Northern countries; see Helmig et al. 2017), whereas voluntary organizations, like sports clubs, play an important role. Here, volunteering is not only relevant for sports clubs and members but also for civil society, since integration in a club can lead to integration in the broader community and play an important role for social trust. Volunteering in sports clubs gives people the opportunity to engage in society and public welfare. For example, sports clubs are the most important supporters of youth sports in Switzerland. This is the result of the traditional idea of subsidiarity and autonomy. Within this principle, tasks, actions, and solutions to problems in Swiss society are undertaken, as far as possible, independently and autonomously. The implications are that public institutions only intervene if there is significant market failure. In addition, action by public institutions usually occur at the most local level possible, for example, at the level of the municipality rather than the canton.

In the federal constitution of Switzerland, Article 68 lays down the promotion and development of sports. The “federal law for promotion of sports and exercise”, established in 2012, provides a legal framework to support private initiatives in sports, especially those of sports federations and clubs. The agency responsible for the development of national sports policy is the Federal Office of Sport (FOSPO). This is done in partnership with Swiss sports federations, particularly the national umbrella organization Swiss Olympic (Nagel and Adler Zwahlen 2016).

However, the national government has no direct legal obligations to sport clubs and vice versa, apart from the national “Youth and Sports program (J+S)”, in which the FOSPO distributes over 80 million CHF per year to clubs engaged in the promotion of youth sports. This program is predominantly realized through volunteers in sports clubs. There are currently over 120,000 licensed J + S coaches who usually work as volunteers in sports clubs in Switzerland. In 2010, approximately 700,000 children and young adults took part in one or more courses in 75 different kinds of sports offered by J + S. This corresponds to about two-thirds of the Swiss population aged between 10 and 20 years. Public funding promotes courses, events, and camps for children and adolescents, as well as for the trainers responsible for youth sports groups (Nagel and Adler Zwahlen 2016; Stamm et al. 2015).

Apart from “Youth and Sports”, there is neither a national policy nor a specific program in Switzerland to promote volunteering in general or in sports. Nevertheless, volunteering is on the political agendas in sports. Sports politicians and board members of national federations communicate regularly about the importance of volunteering for sports clubs and sports promotion. Although there is no specific volunteering policy, several initiatives that have the objective to recruit and retain volunteers in sports have been created. There is the online platform “Swiss (Olympic) Volunteers”, which helps organizers to recruit enough volunteers for their sports events and gives interested people the opportunity to get in contact with the event organization. “SwissTopSports” – the network of the biggest international sports events in Switzerland – in partnership with Swiss Olympic manage this tool for an effective volunteer management in the context of sports. Furthermore, Swiss Olympic has introduced the “Volunteer of the Year Award”, which bestows awards on volunteers in sports for their outstanding engagement. There are several additional programs at the regional and municipal level which promote voluntary work. 

23.5 Typologies of Volunteers in Sports

Motives of volunteer engagement are fundamentally important; however, continuous changes in these motives can be observed. The consequences of these changes cause divergent expectations and affect the goals individuals relate to their voluntary engagement. Changes in motives and expectations of voluntary engagement have become harder to comprehend and are a greater challenge for sports providers to handle adequately. In this context, more precise orientation toward volunteer motives and expectations is increasingly important in volunteer management. Two studies, conducted in Switzerland, present information on segmentation of long-term volunteers in sports clubs and volunteering for sport events.

23.5.1 Study 1: Expectation-Based Profiles of Volunteers in Swiss Sports Clubs

The aim of this study was to analyze “how volunteer expectations of the underlying work conditions in their sports clubs could be categorized and to what extent volunteers in sports clubs differ in their expectations”. Volunteer expectations were analyzed in a sample of 441 volunteers who hold a formal voluntary position in 45 selected Swiss sports clubs (e.g., as coach, referee, board member; for more detail see Schlesinger et al. 2014).

The analysis of volunteer expectations was related to the construct of job satisfaction. Volunteer job satisfaction can be understood as the result of the cognitive and emotional evaluation of the relationship between volunteers’ expectations of the working conditions (desired state) and the actual situation (e.g., Chelladurai 2006). A pool of 27 items represents different facets of the working conditions in sports clubs based on the concept of volunteer job satisfaction (e.g., Finkelstein 2008; Galindo-Kuhn and Guzley 2001; Silverberg et al. 2001). Volunteers stated their expectations by scoring the relevance of different items of the work environment on a five-point scale ranging from “1 = unimportant to 5 = very important”. The identified seven dimensions were subsequently characterized by explorative factor analyses: (1) “Task design”, (2) “Communication”, (3) “Material incentives”, (4) “Appreciation and recognition”, (5) “Participation”, (6) “Support”, and (7) “Social networks”. Findings of reliability analyses of the dimensions with Cronbach’s α (for the dimensions) and of the selectivity coefficients (for the single items) were acceptable (for more detail see Egli et al. 2014).

All dimensions were included in a cluster analysis to identify expectation profiles of volunteers that can be distinguished from each other. The creation of clusters was done according to Spiel (1998), with an intra-individual standardization procedure conducted to take into account intra-individual relations between the expectation of volunteers. Based on the available statistical decision criteria, a four-cluster solution was selected (Fig. 23.3). In the following, the four clusters are named and described based on their positive characteristics and on the expectation dimensions (Egli et al. 2014).

  • Cluster 1: Recognition seekers (n = 126, 34.2%): Volunteers in this cluster had above-average expectations regarding the factor Appreciation and recognition. That is, they expected to be appreciated for what they do and for their services to be honored through symbolic recognition (certificates, awards). In contrast, the factors Material incentives, Participation, and Task design tended to have below-average significance.

  • Cluster 2: Material incentive seekers (n = 137, 37.2%): Volunteers in the largest cluster were characterized by above-average expectations regarding the dimension of Material incentives, which stood out particularly strong compared to the other expectations in this cluster. These materially oriented volunteers expected to be recompensed in the form of financial rewards and benefits (e.g., reduced membership fees). In contrast, the factors Communication and Participation were comparatively low.

  • Cluster 3: Participation and communication seekers (n = 46, 12.5%): Volunteers in this cluster typically had above-average expectations regarding the factors Communication and Participation. They expected to have tasks assigned corresponding to their abilities and to gain opportunities to contribute their own competences. In addition, they wanted to be informed about important decisions in their club and expected a constructive exchange of knowledge and experience. Moreover, they considered challenging and varied tasks to be important but showed less interest in the factors Material incentives and Appreciation and recognition.

  • Cluster 4: Support seekers (n = 59, 16.0%): The main expectations in this cluster were oriented toward support. People in this cluster expected to have their voluntary work supported so that they could coordinate their careers with their volunteering, to have close contacts to the club management, and to receive support with further training. In addition, the factors Task design and Social network were important for support seekers, whereas the factors Appreciation and recognition and Material incentives tended to be unimportant.

Fig. 23.3
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Z-standardized cluster with expectations in the four types of sports club volunteers

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Such a typology of volunteer expectations related to the underlying work conditions enables the volunteer management of sports clubs to more carefully address several profiles of volunteers with divergent expectations. Job descriptions can be more appropriately adapted to the needs and motives of the target group, and the tasks and positions can be more carefully designed related to demand, thereby promoting the targeted consequences (higher job satisfaction and higher commitment) while avoiding negative effects (emotional exhaustion).

23.5.2 Study 2: Motivational Profiles of Sporting Event Volunteers

Aside from long-term volunteering for sports organizations, episodic volunteering has become particularly popular in recent years. The following study investigated the question, “to what extent do volunteers at sporting events differ in the motives of their engagement, and how can volunteers be adequately classified?”. In this study, all registered volunteers from the 2014 European Athletics Championships in Zurich were interviewed (N = 2,024). Data were collected using an online questionnaire three months before the sporting event started (total sample, n = 1,169).

Different concepts are available to analyze volunteer motivation such as the “Motivation to Volunteer Scale” developed by Cnaan and Goldberg-Glen (1991) and the “Volunteer Functions Inventory” developed by Clary et al. (1998). Reflecting on these fundamental approaches, several scales have been adapted and specified to analyze motives of sporting event volunteers: The “Special Event Volunteer Motivation Scale” (SEVMS), developed by Farrell et al. (1998); the “Olympic Volunteer Motivation Scale” (OVMS), developed by Giannoulakis et al. (2007); or the “Volunteer Motivation Scale for International Sporting Events” (VMS-ISE), developed and validated by Bang and Chelladurai (2009) and Bang and Ross (2009).

In this study, the VMS-ISE was used as the most suitable fit to the characteristics of the European Athletics Championships. The VMS-ISE distinguishes between seven motivational dimensions (Bang and Ross 2009): (1) “Expression of values”, (2) “Community involvement”, (3) “Interpersonal contacts”, (4) “Career orientation”, (5) “Personal growth”, (6) “Extrinsic rewards”, and (7) “Love of sport”. The validity of the VMS-ISE was analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis, and the data were clustered to identify distinct motivation-based volunteer profiles (see in more detail Schlesinger and Gubler 2016). In the following, the four profiles are named and characterized based on their positive levels on single motive dimensions (see in more detail Schlesinger and Gubler 2016).

  • Cluster 1 – The “Community Supporters” accounted for 355 (30.4%) respondents: Volunteers in this largest cluster typically had above-average motivation on the factors Community involvement and Expression of values. They donated their time to support the event in order to be part of the local community, and out of concern for others, and to contribute to the success of the event, and society. In contrast, the factors Career orientation and Personal growth functioned less frequently as drivers of their motivation.

  • Cluster 2 – The “Material Incentive Seekers” accounted for 279 (23.9%) respondents: Volunteers in this cluster were characterized by above-average motivation on the factor Extrinsic rewards. These materially oriented volunteers expected to be recompensed in the form of getting free uniforms, food, accommodation, and admission. The factor Career orientation was also important, whereas the factors Expression of values and Social contacts tended to have below-average significance.

  • Cluster 3 – The “Social Networkers” accounted for 260 (22.2%) respondents: This cluster was particularly motivated by developing interpersonal contacts. Through their voluntary activity, these individuals wanted to meet and interact with people, form friendships, and build up social networks. One common aspect of this cluster was that they were weakly motivated by the factor Community involvement. The motive of helping the event as part of the local community was obviously overlaid by helping in order to establish new social contacts.

  • Cluster 4 – The “Career and Personal Growth Orienteers” accounted for 275 (23.5%) respondents: The main motives of this cluster were Career  orientation and Personal growth. People engaged voluntarily in order to gain both, valuable career contacts and new perspectives or experiences that they considered were important and necessary in other life areas. However, they were less motivated by the factors Love of sport and Extrinsic rewards (see Fig. 23.4).

Fig. 23.4
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Z-standardized cluster means of motivation in the four clusters of sports event volunteers

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These results could have significant implications for the management of event volunteers: Firstly, individuals show a stronger motivation to start volunteering in relation to recruitment messages when the messages affect specific motivational features that are relevant to them as a volunteer. A clear understanding of different motivational profiles can help to develop more targeted recruitment messages and campaigns.

Furthermore, event organizers who are familiar with divergent motivational profiles of their volunteers can gain valuable references to create distinctive working conditions and tasks during the event, which better correspond with the expectations of their volunteers. Recruiting enough volunteers requires the targeting of various profiles and the adjustment of what is on offer. If there are volunteers who are primarily motivated by the desire for extrinsic rewards (Cluster 2), the design of (attractive) material incentives (e.g., gifts, uniforms, tickets) should play a crucial role in meeting their motives and ensuring volunteer satisfaction.

23.6 Conclusion

Volunteering has traditionally played an important role in the Swiss sports system, particularly in sports clubs. Despite a certain process of professionalization and some problems with recruiting and retaining enough qualified volunteers, volunteering is still crucial for nearly all clubs. About half of all members do volunteer work in their club, although there is neither a national policy nor a specific program in Switzerland to promote volunteering in general or in sports. Voluntary work is not only relevant for sports clubs but also for civil society, since volunteering in sports clubs gives people the opportunity to engage for public welfare (e.g., in youth sports).