Volunteering Legacies from the Olympic Games: Missed Opportunities
20/06/2024
Country: Australia
Publication date: 2024
Published in: Voluntas International Journal of voluntary and for not for profit organisations
Authors: Kirsten Holmes, Karen A. Smith, Leonie Lockstone-Binney, Richard Shipway & Faith Ong
Free access to full paper https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11266-024-00643-w
With a growing importance of legacy in bids to host mega events, this paper examines how far repeat or sustained volunteering after the event (social legacy) is facilitated by event organising committees leveraging existing volunteering infrastructure in host communities.
Volunteering infrastructure is defined as the organisations and programmes in place to promote, support and manage volunteers, including volunteering peak bodies, volunteer resource centres, national governing bodies of sport, community and third sector organisations, and government.
The paper uses the lens of regulatory capitalism (in simple terms, the contracting out public services to the private sector for delivery) to examine how the organising committees of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games engaged with the third sector, and specifically the volunteering infrastructure of the host nations, in the planning, delivery and post-event phases to create a volunteering legacy for the host community.
The two case studies involved 27 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders representing the organising committees and the volunteering infrastructure in the host cities.
While the Sydney Olympics had no specific remit for legacy planning, the third sector led legacy efforts in Australia. At the London Olympics, there was a failure to engage with the third sector, which limited government-led legacy planning and implementation. In the latter case, the framework of regulatory capitalism prioritised contracts with the private sector over meaningful engagement with the third sector.
It also considers the nature of sporadic and sports volunteering, particularly at ‘mega events’, and whether one-off once-in-a-life-time volunteering experience, can be replicated or repeated in later volunteer roles.