The Australian Sports Commission (ASC) recognises that the greatest single impediment to increasing participation in sport is attracting, training and retaining the volunteers that sport relies on to deliver programs and activities.

According to the ABS statistical overview of Sports and Physical Recreation in 2009:

• Over 5.2 million people or 34% of the adult population aged 18 years and over participated in voluntary work in 2006. Sport and physical recreation organisations attracted the largest number of volunteers with 1.7 million people (11% of the population).
• Volunteers in total sport organisations reported a variety of reasons for volunteering with the 3 main reasons being to help others in the community (53% or 1.0 million), personal satisfaction (46% or 0.8 million) and personal or family involvement (46% or 0.8 million).
• Over half of all sport and physical recreation volunteers (54% or 925,900) were involved in coaching, refereeing or judging. Higher proportions of sport and physical recreation volunteers were also involved in administrative and clerical roles (37% or 637,200) or management and committee work (32% or 544,100).

The success of softball in Australia is largely due to the dedication and hard work of those members, and their friends and families, who choose to become a volunteer and who give so much of their time and energy to softball. Every Club and Associations has its local heroes whose support is essential to softball's continued endurance at the grassroots and success on the international stage.

The benefits of volunteering are many, not the least of which is making a positive contribution to softball and being part of a community of like-minded people.

Softball Australia is developing resources to foster excellent volunteer management throughout the softball community. We support the ASC's guidelines on the rights of volunteers and the policies of Volunteering Australia. Volunteering Australia publishes a monthly newsletter with the latest on the stories and issues affecting volunteering and the not-for-profit sector.

There are many opportunities available for those wanting to volunteer their time, energy and skills to softball in Australia. Many of these opportunities are advertised in the Join our team section of this website.