Is Victoria the best place in sport – for everyone?

By Andrew O'Loughlin - Vicsport Manager Strategic Projects

At VicSport, we are working to make Victoria the best place to be involved in sport - for everyone - and that, of course, needs to include our volunteers.

If we’re serious about our mission we need to talk about our unpaid workforce because our sector would not exist without our volunteers. They are the reason the season runs, from coaches and umpires to team managers and administrators who coordinate it all.

They shape the experience everyone is having in sport and that decides whether our participants and members want to start and then stay involved.

But also, if these volunteers aren’t having the experience they need, they won’t keep showing up and contributing to make Victoria the best place to be involved in sport.

So, off the back of National Volunteer Week, and the release of the Australian Sport Commission's Volunteers Dashboard data, we thought it was time to report on the state of volunteering in our state and ask two questions:

Is Victoria becoming the best place to volunteer in sport? And how can it be even better?

The new dashboard (and why it’s useful!)

Source: https://www.ausport.gov.au/clearinghouse/research/volunteer-dashboard

The Sport Volunteering Dashboard is a valuable tool for us to use because it gives us a clear baseline to understand the state of volunteering in our sport.

This matters because volunteering is such an important contribution to Victorian lives, but has become the ‘elephant in the room’ for our sector, and the solutions to fix the ‘volunteer shortage’ are often anecdotal or tactical. But with insights like these, we can now be to be more informed and strategic.

Where Victoria sits

The headline numbers tell us something reassuring:

In 2024/25, 12.8% of Australians aged 15+ volunteered in sport.

Victoria sits above that, at 13.7%, up from 13.4% the year before.

And when you compare Victoria to other states, we’re clearly doing well on the ladder.

That’s good news. But being in Victoria and claiming it as the ‘best place’ isn’t about being near the best, it’s about leading the way, and driving sustained solutions.

Breaking it down - Volunteering isn’t just one job 

One of the most useful parts of the dashboard is that it breaks volunteering into non-playing roles, because “volunteer” is not one thing. It’s administrators and committee members. It’s coaches and instructors. It’s officials. It’s team managers.

And this is useful, as any problem or challenge needs specific solutions and the solutions require different strategies. We are only as strong as our weakest link.

For example, if coaching is weak, the sport experience collapses even if administration is strong. Or, participation may be strong, but the sport is at risk if the administration can not support that.

So being the “best place” depends on whether the volunteer system is balanced and resilient. And its important to know where we are tracking well and where we can do better, sooner.

The job is enormous - and the system is tenuous

A insight from the dashboard which is compelling and somewhat concerning is:

Volunteers deliver 168 million hours and $4.1B in value. Yet 58% of clubs offer no formal recognition.

That’s not an intentional failing. It’s a systems gap.

And if recognition is one of the strongest predictors of people staying in roles (and it is), then this is one of the easiest improvements we can make to be ‘the best place’.

The Sport Volunteering Dashboard suggests volunteer retention is strongly linked to experience - especially belonging and recognition. In the current vs former volunteer comparison, 40% of current volunteers said they felt acknowledged “a lot”, compared to 27% of former volunteers (a 13-point gap). And yet the dashboard reports 58% of clubs offer no formal recognition. In other words: recognition isn’t a “nice extra” - it’s a practical retention lever, and one of the easiest improvements we can make to become a true “best place.”

A Strategic Solution - The Retention Approach

Looking after the volunteers we already have is a very efficient and respectful way of approaching the challenge. 

And one of the best insights from the dashboard data gives us some signposts on us how to do it, and it suggests that volunteer retention isn’t just about managing demands - it’s that the biggest difference between current and former volunteers is whether they felt included.

The Volunteer Dashboard shows the biggest difference between current and former volunteers is how included they felt. In 2025, 48% of current volunteers said they felt included “a lot”, compared to 34% of ex-volunteers - a 14-point gap - alongside similar gaps in role fit, recognition and support.

Which means the solution isn’t ‘ask more’, the solution is to design a better volunteer experience.

Retain the Participant - Gain a Volunteer

In my work with various sports, we consistently see volunteering increase with length of involvement with a club or sport.

The longer someone stays connected to a sport, the more likely they are to step into helping roles - not just because they’re more committed, but because the sport has become part of their identity.

So, what does the “Best Place to Volunteer” look like?

There is a lot to it, but some immediate insights we can turn into interventions include these five levers:

Ease, Belonging, Choice, Recognition, Support.

1) Make it easier to step in (Ease)

·       micro-roles (15–30 minutes)

·       “help once a month” roles

·       clear role descriptions (not mystery jobs)

·       reduced admin and duplication

2) Make people feel included (Belonging)

·       volunteer onboarding like participant onboarding

·       buddy systems and welcome rituals

·       clear social norms (“we look after each other here”)

3) Make roles fit real life (Choice)

·       flexible rostering

·       seasonal roles (not permanent jobs)

·       choice-based contribution lanes

4) Make contribution visible (Recognition)

·       regular recognition cadence (not annual)

·       visible gratitude as culture, not ceremony

5) Make it sustainable (Support)

·       tools, templates, and role handover systems

·       shared-load models (remove the “hero volunteer” trap)

This is how we shift from ad hoc volunteering to a planned volunteering system.

The future ‘Best Place’ challenge for Victoria (and the opportunity)

Victoria is already strong on volunteering.But the mission isn’t done.

These five levers provide some ideas for solutions, but if we are creating the best place - for everyone - that needs to be sustained, and not at risk of breaking.

So the opportunity now is to turn volunteering from a tenuous relationship into a planned sustainable system.

Because if we want sport to be easier to start and worth staying in, we need volunteering to be an experience people want to start, and worth staying in too.