Sport Australia
Co-designing a shared blueprint for the future of sport volunteering
Sport volunteers are the backbone of Australian community sport — worth an estimated $4 billion a year — yet the system that supports them is fragmented and under strain. We partnered with Sport Australia to co-design a shared vision, framework and toolkit for the future of sport volunteering, with the people who live it.
Outcomes
- A co-created vision for the future of sport volunteering, validated with the sector
- A framework for change built on five elements of a good volunteer experience, plus three shifts in ways of working
- Seven volunteer archetypes with detailed journey maps to help clubs design for diverse needs and motivations
- Six key opportunity areas for action — from local partnerships to shared recruitment systems — each with concrete first steps for clubs, NSOs/SSOs and government
- A shared language and toolkit any part of the sector can pick up to evaluate, plan and improve the volunteer experience
- A coalition of 51 stakeholders aligned around a common direction
Sectors
A vital workforce under strain
Sport is woven into Australian identity, and none of it happens without volunteers — coaches, club presidents, canteen staff and everyone in between. Their labour is worth an estimated $4 billion every year. But the sector that relies on them is fragmented, with unclear roles and duplicated effort across federal, state and local bodies. COVID-19 sharpened the risk that many volunteers might not return. Rigid, time-consuming roles were already deterring new people, and clubs lacked the tools to understand what volunteers actually wanted. Sport Australia saw a moment to rethink volunteering — not by issuing a directive, but by bringing the sector together.
Designing with the sector, not for it
We treated this as a sector-wide conversation. We co-facilitated three workshops with 44 participants — spanning community clubs, academics, State and National Sport Organisations, peak bodies and government — and ran 10 in-depth interviews with people who knew volunteering firsthand. Between sessions, an online platform let those who couldn't attend every workshop contribute and react to our synthesis in their own time. Across the project, 51 people helped shape the work. The first workshop mapped the current state, the second imagined the future, and the third validated the emerging vision and framework. Every idea was tested with the people who would use it.
The co-created vision — people from all walks of life seeing and realising opportunities to contribute in a way that suits them.
A framework anyone in the sector can use
What emerged was a north-star vision and a practical toolkit to reach it. At its heart is a framework for change built on five elements of a good volunteer experience: make it feel like I belong, make it easy to get involved, tailor roles to my needs, support me, and create value for me, the club and the community. These hold true for any sport, club or person. To bring them to life, we developed seven volunteer archetypes — from the committed sports fan to the underutilised talent — each with a journey map showing how the experience could be tailored to different motivations. Three sector-wide shifts — working collaboratively, trying new things, and using data and insights — anchor the change at a system level.
A journey map for the 'committed sports fan' archetype, showing how the five elements play out across preparation, participation and ongoing engagement.
