The increasing complexity of our society, its regulations and demands causes that European citizens are not interested to become volunteers anymore. Societal evolutions such as the increasing individualisation, the increased aging of europeans and the increasing competitive nature of Western society have also an impact on the sports sector since the sport is living within this society. In order to survive in Western society, humans within organizations go with the stream of performing to succeed in “doing well in today’s World”. These societal changes are also reflected in the demands that stakeholders ask to the sports sector. Several stakeholders of sport associations are demanding professional services of these associations. And this is the dilemma that voluntary associations such as sports clubs are facing: on the one hand these sports clubs are managed by the great efforts of volunteers, who have often other professional and family obligations, and, on the other hand, the same professional services like business organizations are expected.

Threats for volunteering:

• Lack of knowledge on legislation
• Increased administrative tasks
• Increased professional output
• Conflict of time
• Lack of financial resources and the knowledge to gain them
• Lack of (capable) volunteers

The Flemish Government has acknowledged the lack of interest in volunteer activity and has launched several programs to upgrade volunteering in Flanders. One of those programs is the Dynamo Project. Dynamo Project is an experimental non-profit project of the Flemish Sports Federation (Vlaamse sportfederatie) with the aim to provide management and administrative support to volunteers of sports clubs, mainly the board members. Dynamo Project has been active for almost 2 years and is supported by the Flemish government. The professional employees of Dynamo Project have collected very valuable expertise on how to guide and support board members of sports clubs in juridical, legal, fiscal, and administrative domains. Several tools have been developed to diminish administrative work in these sports clubs.

Promoting and securing volunteering in sport key initiatives will be:

• Exchange of best practices of non-profit organizations that support volunteer sports clubs in legal, fiscal, administrative and funding related aspects
• Knowledge exchange through networking workshops
• Building sustainable european networking relationships
• Exchange of tools to support the volunteers in sports clubs
• Offering the opportunity to apply the typology questionnaire developed by the leading partner in the european union (this is a recently developed instrument that focuses on the capacity of the sports club to improve and its willingness to improve in the future)
• Developing international experience and cross-pollination in efficient and effective management support of sports clubs
• Developing a project website to inform the parterns and other stakeholders in the EU about the progressions and results
• Producing a final project report including recommendations for the european commission to promote and insure the survival of voluntarism in Europe