ABSTRACT
Volunteerism is the backbone of civil society, having a tremendous impact by providing social services and by influencing the people receiving these services. Volunteers play a pivotal role in supporting non-profit organisations through individual and collective action. This chapter outlines the impact of volunteers on sport and demonstrates that they are essential to sustaining sport systems and, thus, the contemporary management of them is paramount. As conceptualisations of sport development change over time, so do the expectations and role of sport volunteers. Depending on the nature of the task and the current philosophy of sport development, volunteers must navigate between predominantly technical vs other supportive functions. The vast majority of sport volunteers operate at the community club level in roles which support sport development. Moreover, in settings where community capacity is advocated and used, including neighbourhood strategies, sport and recreation, citizen volunteers are central to community capacity building.
