On September 2 and 30, 2022, members of the Project Team met online to analyse survey results as basis for recommendations to policy makers.
Survey was conducted in accordance with the ‘Methodological manual on measuring the economic impact of volunteering in sport’, which was developed by the Project Team. A non-representative survey was conducted in eight countries: Austria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Netherlands, Spain and the UK. Sport clubs were asked to provide data on the number of hours worked by the volunteers in 2019.
The economic value of their work was calculated based on the labour cost of each activity in the corresponding sector in the respective country. Hence, every task done by the volunteers in every partner country was given its own cost. Further calculations provided the value of the hours worked by volunteers and of the total cost of replicating volunteers’ work by paid employees i.e. the shadow-price of voluntary work in sport clubs. Second survey measured the value of subjective wellbeing and social capital. Both volunteers and non-volunteers were interviewed. Outcomes of both surveys indicated a significant value of voluntary work in the sport sector that can’t be replaced with paid work.
Results will be presented in the consultative conference organised by SportsEconAustria Institute of Sport Economy on 20 October 2022 in Vienna, Austria. Final results will be presented at the final conference organised by the Croatian Olympic Committee on 28 November 2022 in Brussels, Belgium.