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Challenges and Opportunities with young volunteers at YOG
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Dag Vilar Hanstad, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Norway, dag.vidar.hanstad@nih.no
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Abstract
The purpose of the paper is to explore differences in motives among younger and older
volunteers at sporting events. A quantitative study (n=1337, response rate 62%) was
conducted at the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships (WSC) in Oslo, Norway, to
gain knowledge about volunteers at major events – and in particular the motives among
volunteers aged 30 years or less. The findings point to some of the possible challenges
and opportunities which organizers of 2016 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in
Lillehammer, Norway, may encounter when recruiting young volunteers with motives
and expectations which differ from those of people who have traditionally been involved
in sport volunteerism.
There has been a tendency for the mean age of volunteers involved in ordinary sport
organizations to increase and for the frequency of volunteering to decline (Wollebæk &
Sivesind, 2010). Sporting events are seen as an opportunity to attract young volunteers.
One of the aims for the YOG in 2016 is to use the event as a platform for a national
program with the goal of developing a new generation of volunteers, which is similar to
the expected benefit of the 2011 WSC (Oslo 2011, 2011). In the application to the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympics
Committee and Confederation of Sports stated that it “…will ensure that the youth’s
diverse and unique talents have the chance to develop and demonstrate their skills during
the planning and staging of the event” (NIF, 2010).
The 2012 YOG in Innsbruck will provide the Norwegian organizers of the 2016 YOG
with valuable knowledge on recruiting and training volunteers. In Innsbruck the percent
of students among the volunteers is 70 %, a proportion that is very different from what
recent experience in major events in Norway. At the WSC, which lasted for 12 days, the
volunteer work force consisted of 16% students, 54% fulltime employers, and 13%
retired.
Findings and discussion
Among the volunteers at the 2011 WSC 22% were 30 years or younger and 24% 60 years
or older. Sixteen percent were students. Among the differences between the younger and
older groups were: the proportion of women (66% in the young group and 24% in the
older group), membership in sport clubs (43% - 60%), volunteer experience from big sport
events (36% - 68%), function area sport (14% - 36%), and function area support (86% -
64%). The motives of younger volunteers point to challenges and opportunities in
relation to working with younger volunteers in future events.. Table 1 shows the general
motivation for volunteering.
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