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 Subject Guide - Event Volunteering
This online guide contains a number of resources to help managers of volunteers build their knowledge about planning and managing events which involve volunteers, and to help volunteers make the most of the experience and understand and protect their rights as volunteers. All resources within this guide can be accessed online and the majority are available free of charge.
While all sections of the guide are valuable and designed to meet our readers’ different needs, we recommend you don’t miss Section 4, Event Volunteering - Take a Closer Look. In this section we try to build on the knowledge that already exists in the sector. We analyse the collection of resources, bring implications for consideration to the fore, and where possible provide practical advice.
Also, keep an eye on Volunteering Australia’s e-forums. You will find that, from time to time, some of the issues raised in this section are put forward for discussion. This is so that we can get your feedback and reactions on emerging issues, tap into the wisdom and experience in the sector, and promote the sharing of information and knowledge across the sector.
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Contents
1: Fast facts – Gain an understanding of issues related to involving and managing volunteers in events
2: Training materials – Build your skills and knowledge and train others in your organisation
3: Research findings, reports and journal articles – Extend your understanding of this subject
4: Event Volunteering - Take a Closer Look  – Key issues managers of volunteers and not-for-profit organisations need to be aware of when involving and managing volunteers in events
What is 'event volunteering'?
Event volunteering is a form of volunteering that is attracting people in increasing numbers. There are significant differences between the event volunteer experience and ongoing volunteer experience, and these have implications for organisations’ recruitment strategies, the management of risk, and skills development and training. Some resources in this guide use the terms ‘short-term volunteering’ or ‘episodic volunteering’, rather than ‘event volunteering’. Whichever one is used, all the resources listed are about issues to do with event volunteering, rather than ongoing volunteering.
1: Fast facts
Resources that will quickly help you gain an overview of event volunteering and give you a good starting point for building your knowledge.
Volunteer Rights & Volunteer Checklist
This Information Sheet is generic in that volunteers have rights whether they are taking part in an event or are part of the on-going services provided by a not for profit organisation. This sheet outlines the basic rights of all volunteers and gives a list of the features and qualities volunteers should look for in an organisation when they are considering volunteering.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Event Volunteering
This is a section of the website of The Centre for Volunteering, the home of Volunteering NSW. The Event volunteering section has information for event organisers, divided into: Key tips when planning to engage volunteers; How to assign volunteers; Event volunteer roles; Tips for holding orientation sessions; Compulsory insurance requirements; Rights and responsibilities; and a calendar of opportunities for people who want to volunteer at events.
Copyright owner/publisher: The Centre for Volunteering, NSW
Valuing Volunteers in Sport and Recreation
This webpage gives a quick look at volunteering statistics in Queensland but it also lists some of the current trends in volunteering and responses that not-for-profit organisations can make.
Copyright owner/publisher: The State of Queensland (Department of Innovation and Information Economy, Sport and Recreation Queensland), 2001
Voluntary Work Survey 2006
If you are interested in finding other statistics on volunteering, a good place to start is the Australian Bureau of Statistics website which offers resources in the shape of surveys, reports and summaries. Go to the Voluntary Work Survey 2006 – this will give you a breakdown of volunteering statistics by state, motivation, tasks and hours.
Copyright owner/publisher: Commonwealth of Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Snapshot 2004: Volunteering Report Card
Snapshot 2004. developed by Volunteering Australia in partnership with AMP Foundation, summarises of some of the trends in volunteering and reports on progress made towards objectives identified during the International Year of Volunteers 2001 and published in A National Agenda on Volunteering: Beyond the International Year of Volunteers. Objective 6 (Snapshot 2004, p.10) relates to the diversity and changing face of volunteering, and the challenges which volunteer-involving organisations face in meeting the needs and expectations of volunteers. It places the trend of short-term volunteering in context with other trends.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Communications table, Vic Seniors Festival and COTA
This table is an actual working document that was used during the 2005 Victorian Seniors Festival to ensure clear and efficient lines of communication between the manager of volunteers/projects, volunteers, official representatives of the Festival and the media. This was the first time that volunteers had been involved to such a large extent in this Festival. If you are new to event volunteering, you will find this is a practical tool which has proven useful in organising an events program involving volunteers.
Copyright owner/publisher: Vic Seniors Festival
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2: Training
Resources aimed at assisting managers of volunteers and not-for-profit organisations to develop their understanding of managing peopel volunteering for events.
Managing Event Volunteers , a module of the Volunteer Management Program (VMP)
Event Management  , a module of the Club and Association Management Program (CAMP)
In 1994, the Volunteer Involvement Program was developed as a joint national program of the Australian Sports Commission, Australian Society of Sports Administrators, Confederation of Australian Sport, and state departments of sport and recreation. The program aimed to help volunteers by developing a series of resources on club administration. In 2000, the Volunteer Management Program (VMP) and the Club and Association Management Program (CAMP) resources were published.
While the VMP Managing Event Volunteers module is specific to this guide, and all the materials were developed for the sport and recreation sector, the other VMP modules are applicable to volunteer management in general, with useful modules on recruiting, training and retaining volunteers, and developing policy and best practice in managing volunteers.
Copyright owner/publisher: Australian Sports Commission
Running the risk? Risk management tool for volunteer-involving organisations
Funded by the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services, this is a step-by-step outline of the risk management planning process and the tools given in this publication are intended as guides that can be adapted to suit the organisation’s needs. This publication is divided into a number of sections including: checklists to help paid and volunteer staff think about risk, case studies, forms and a ‘how to’ section to help the working group or project team responsible for producing a risk management program. It contains project planning guidelines and a clear and simple 4-step guide to identify and treat risks.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Plan and Manage Conferences
This resource will assist volunteers and other interested learners to plan and organise conferences. It is one of some 60 learner guides available on Volunteering Australia’s website, procured under the National Volunteer Skills Centre, a project managed by Volunteering Australia and funded by the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. (BSBADM503A, part of BSB01 Business Services Training Package from the Australian National Training Authority.)
Copyright owner/publisher: Australian National Training Authority (National Training Information Service)
Event Management
This resource presents an event management process and describes the main tasks associated with the process. It also discusses the key skills and attributes required for event management. Topics covered include: Event feasibility, Event planning, Event marketing, Event delivery and Event evaluation.
Copyright owner/publisher: Sport and Recreation Queensland
Plan & Program Events
Creative Volunteering – No Limits is a national skills development project for volunteers working in cultural sectors in regional Australia. It began in 2003 and is the first nationally recognised and co-ordinated training program for volunteers in regional, rural and remote Australia.
This workbook covers key elements of planning and programming arts and cultural events, and incorporates generating concepts for the design of an event, event planning tools, event budgeting and scheduling, programming activities and risk management strategies. There are a number of other workbooks in this series that you may also find informative and useful for projects with an arts and cultural focus.
Copyright owner/publisher: Regional Arts Australia
The Online Clubhouse
The Clubhouse has been developed as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for recreation or sporting club management and administration. It aims to provide community clubs with comprehensive resources, including templates and good practice examples, to help run a better, smarter and safer club. In the Online Clubhouse, under the topic ‘Running Your Club’, there are information resources both for managing and planning events, and managing event volunteers.
Also available on CD-ROM on request
Copyright owner/publisher: Department of Sport and Recreation, WA
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3: Research findings, reports and articles
Research interest in different forms of volunteering is growing. As new research resources are identified, they will be added to this section.
Long-term impacts on short-term volunteering
Paper by Eleanor Loudon, Volunteer Program Manager, Earthwatch Australia, presented in 2004 at the 10th National Conference on Volunteering, Volunteering – evolution, devolution or revolution?
Short-term volunteering can be the catalyst for a shift in the view that individuals are powerless to effect environmental change. This paper reports on interviews with Earthwatch volunteers who talked about what motivated them and how the experience changed them, and about the link between their first short-term volunteering experience and the ‘lasting behavioural change’ that Eleanor Loudon contends results from the short-term volunteering experience.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Rethinking Episodic Volunteering
This article (‘Topic of the Month’) considers short-term or episodic volunteering and some of the management issues that need to be considered.
There are a number of articles written as ‘Topic of the Month’ by Mary Merrill which touch on other aspects of volunteering, some of which have management implications for event volunteering.
Copyright owner/publisher: Merrill Associates
Volunteering and the National Folk Festival – a positive approach
J. Hodges in Australian Journal on Volunteering, vol. 3, no. 2, 1998, pp. 22–24
This reflective piece looks at the importance of volunteers to the National Folk Festival, outlining the essential role of a successful volunteer program and the significance of volunteer evaluation as a means of meeting the needs of volunteers and running a successful festival.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Capacity building in public health and emergency management for volunteers at outdoor music festivals
C. Earl, E. Parker, M. Edwards & M. Capra in Australian Journal on Volunteering, vol. 9, no. 2, 2004, pp. 19–24
This article discusses two studies undertaken to assess the impact of training on volunteer capacity. The first study was carried out a European festival with a training expectation, and the other at an Australian festival without the same expectation. The findings support the introduction of formal training programs for volunteers at outdoor music festivals in Australia.
Although this article looks specifically at outdoor music festival and events, it may find a wider audience, as it examines characteristics common to all types of event volunteering, such as the added complexity of skills development and management in event volunteering. Event volunteering involves ‘singular tasks’ (such as ticket collection or orientation) but it also often demands knowledge of ‘multi-level’ tasks such as emergency and public health management. Additionally, event volunteering will sometimes require volunteers to have a greater degree of autonomy and initiative due to physical distance between supervisors and volunteers and limitations of available communications equipment. These are issues that may be relevant to many types of events.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Volunteers 2000 – The recruitment process
B. Lynch in Australian Journal on Volunteering, vol. 5, no.1, 2000, pp. 41–43
This article traces the background to the massive undertaking of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and the Sydney Paralympic Organising Committee (SPOC) to recruit over 50,000 volunteers for the staging of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sydney in 2000.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Big picture, small picture: the 2000 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Volunteer Experience – a personal perspective
J. Fairbairn in Australian Journal on Volunteering, vol. 6, no.1, 2001, pp. 51–52
Jo Fairbairn writes of her experiences as an Olympic Torch Bearer, an Olympic Volunteer at the Athletes Village, Resident Centre and the National Volunteer Paralympic Assistant to the Chef de Mission of Austria.
Copyright owner/publisher: Volunteering Australia
Adopting Sustainable Ethics: Voluntary Practice Amongst Event Organizers Volunteering
Graham Berridge in Volunteering as Leisure/Leisure as Volunteering: An International Assessment, edited by R. A. Stebbins & M. Graham, 2004, CABI Publishing, Chapter 2, pp. 33-48
Berridge discusses the use of sustainable and ethical practices by not-for-profit organisations running mountain bike events in the UK and compares these with practices in the USA. This is an interesting article, as it considers not only the ethics of running events which are mindful of sustaining the environment but also how these ethics are tied to the continuance of the events themselves.
Catalogued in Volunteering Australia library, ISBN 0 85199 750 3.
Copyright owner/publisher: CABI Publishing
Paths to Volunteer Commitment: Lessons from the Sydney Olympic Games
B. Christine Green & Laurence Chalip in Volunteering as Leisure/Leisure as Volunteering: An International assessment, edited by R. A. Stebbins & M. Graham, 2004, CABI Publishing, Chapter 3, pp. 49–67
Event volunteers have become vital to the success of events and consequently to the economic and social development to which events are expected to contribute. This chapter analyses the understanding we have of the commitment by volunteers to events as well as other critical aspects of contemporary volunteering.
Catalogued in Volunteering Australia library, ISBN 0 85199 750 3.
Copyright owner/publisher: CABI Publishing
If you are interested in further reading on this subject or conducting or participating in research yourself, Volunteering Australia offers two services which may interest you.
The Australian Volunteering Library Network (AVALON) is a network of libraries across Australia specialising in resources on volunteering. Current members of the network are: Volunteering Australia, Volunteering Australia Darwin Resource Centre, Volunteering NSW, Volunteering QLD, Volunteering SA, Volunteering TAS and Volunteering VIC. To view the online library catalogue, click here.
To find out about current research projects and emerging trends, and to make contact with researchers on volunteering, visit our researchers’ database. The database can be searched by state, sector, research theme and demographics.
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4: Event Volunteering - Take a Closer Look
Aimed primarily at people managing and planning events involving volunteers, or training volunteers for those events, this guide canvasses key issues to consider, and provides practical advice about:
- emerging trends in event volunteering,
- public relations and promotional issues,
- training and briefing volunteers,
- risk management issues.
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Volunteering Australia would like to thank all organisations and authors who have given us permission to include their resources free of charge in this Subject Guide. We also acknowledge and thank Dr Russel Hoye, Senior Lecturer in Sport Management at La Trobe University, who volunteered his time and expertise to contribute to the reviewing and evaluating of materials for this guide.
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