When volunteers disappear into the experience, you know you got it right

When volunteers disappear into the experience, you know you got it right

There’s a strange thing about great volunteer programs: when they’re working, nobody notices them.

That’s the paradox at the heart of The Future of Sport Volunteer Programs, Rosterfy’s recent webinar exploring how volunteer experience shapes the athlete and guest experience. The conversation featured Laura Heien, Director of Championship Administration at the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP), and Shannon Dority, a marathon runner who also happens to work in marketing at Rosterfy — giving her a rare dual view of event day, from both sides of the volunteer badge.

The problem isn’t recruitment

Start with the data: according to Gallup, 31% of Americans volunteered formally in the past year — but another 36% wanted to and didn’t. For sports organizations, that gap rarely comes down to lack of interest. People want to be involved in the events and causes they love. The real obstacle is friction: busy schedules, short attention spans, and volunteer processes that ask too much before giving anything back.

What 125 years of golf taught GAP about volunteers

Founded in 1897, GAP runs roughly 200 events a year across the Philadelphia region with a full-time staff of just 32 people. That math only works with a strong volunteer base — and Laura’s team has spent the last few years rethinking how that base is built.

Two shifts stood out:

• Year-round onboarding instead of one seasonal push. Rather than opening applications once a year, GAP now captures interest the moment someone finds them — while enthusiasm is still fresh — and lets people learn about opportunities at their own pace.
• Standardizing the basics. Where do I park? Where do I check in? How do I even get to hole 14? Volunteers expect these answers to just be there. Getting that right takes real behind-the-scenes work, but it pays off in confidence on the day.

The result, according to GAP’s case study: roughly 75% less administrative time — freeing up staff to invest in things like their adaptive golf programs instead of chasing logistics.

The athlete’s-eye view

Shannon’s perspective added something the operations side can’t always see. Having run events like the London Marathon and the Walt Disney World Marathon, she described a pattern every event organizer should recognize: when volunteer support is done well, athletes barely register it. They notice the encouragement, the water stations, the directions — but rarely the coordination underneath. It’s only in hindsight, looking back at everything that had to happen for the day to run smoothly, that the scale of the effort becomes visible.

The flip side is just as telling. When something goes wrong, athletes notice immediately — and it shows up as nerves, not just inconvenience.

Calm is a feature, not a vibe

Laura put it simply: when staff and volunteers look calm and in control, it gives everyone around them — athletes, guests, other volunteers — permission to relax and enjoy the event. That calm doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the byproduct of removing the admin burden that would otherwise keep teams scrambling instead of present.

That’s really the throughline of the whole conversation: automation isn’t in tension with the human, high-touch parts of running a volunteer program — it’s what makes room for them. GAP’s 75% time savings didn’t get reinvested into more admin. It went straight back into community: better training, more adaptive programming, more face time with the volunteers who show up year after year.

The takeaway

Sports organizations don’t have a shortage of people who want to help. They have a shortage of time to turn that willingness into a great experience — for volunteers and the athletes and guests they support. Solve for the time, and the community tends to take care of itself.