Special Olympics World Games: Ensuring a world class volunteer experience

Introduction

Volunteers play a crucial role in the success of any major sporting event. Their enthusiasm, passion, dedication and support are invaluable in creating a positive and inclusive environment for athletes and spectators alike.

In the case of the Berlin 2023 Special Olympics Rosterfy, a leading volunteer management software was selected as the volunteer management software trusted to ensure a brilliant volunteer experience was created.

The Challenge

Redefining the volunteer recruitment process

One of the challenges of running a large scale event is that often organisers receive a rush of volunteer applications when you first open registrations. The importance of capitalising on that interest is imperative and often, it simply isn’t possible to respond to the thousands of applications without technology to help. Finding the right people and guiding them through the recruitment process can be challenging but Rosterfy simplifies that with our automated journeys.

The Solution

The Special Olympics World Games in Berlin involved participation from over 16,000 volunteers. These volunteers all needed to be recruited, screened, trained and communicated with and that would normally take a colossal effort from an admin team.

Rosterfy helped by streamlining tasks, automating repeatable processes and standardising communication.

Screening over 50,000 volunteers

The volunteer management team received over 56,000 registrations to volunteer for the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin. With only 14,000 shifts available, the team had the colossal task of screening and scheduling volunteers across 17 venues across 9,000 shifts.

Proven experience

Rosterfy’s experience in supporting large scale events played a huge role in the success of the volunteer program. Using tried and tested workflows, the team were able to automate a lot of the processes across screening, scheduling and training to ensure maximum efficiency.

The Impact

The Special Olympics World Games delivered an incredible volunteer program. Key achievements include:

• 16,000 volunteers supported the Games
• 56,116 volunteer registrations
• 17 venues and over 9,227 shifts
• 41 administrators
• 20,924 interviews completed