How to Retain Volunteer Coaches

Abstract

Sports clubs often report how valuable volunteers are to their organization. Despite this, there is a decline in volunteer engagement in sports. Therefore, the aim of our study is to investigate how five sports clubs in the Gothenburg area work to retain their volunteer coaches in their youth organizations. To investigate this, we conducted five semi-structured interviews with successful clubs in the Gothenburg area and compared the responses to an established scientific model; ´A Model Of Volunteer Retention in Youth Sport´ (Kim, Chelladurai & Trail, 2007). The result revealed that to retain volunteer coaches, it is crucial for the clubs to have well-defined core values and defined behaviors that reflect those core values, work actively with club development and educate their coaches. We concluded that, despite the declining number of volunteer coaches, it is possible for a club to affect their access to volunteer coaches by structuring their organization.