Blog - Making the case for the financial and social value of sport

By Neil Watson - Director of the social research co-operative Substance.

Over the last eighteen months Substance have been working with the Sported Foundation to help sport for development agencies report the impact of their work and understand how and what difference it makes to young people’s lives.

I was in a meeting last week with NHS South West London asking how they commission work and measure the impact of those who deliver it. To demonstrate, they produced a copy of a tender document for their Active Celebration programme and two things jumped out. Firstly that they wanted to commission an ‘evidence based approach’ and secondly it stipulated that part of it needed to be delivered as a ‘results based funding’ contract.

Programmes such as the Premier League / Metropolitan Police Kickz programme are one of those that operate an evidence based approach. Identifying and engaging with young people on their own territory, offering high quality activity programmes and associated support, developing mentoring and volunteering programmes and creating routes into appropriate education and employment programmes has been proven to change behaviours. Its why year on year they demonstrate good quality personal outcomes for thousands of 16-19 year olds.

Football Club community programmes have developed a culture of respect for good evidence. It’s now less likely to hear any of them claiming a “70% reduction in youth crime” across the estate as a result of their efforts. They have become serious players and have benefited from other investments as a result of developing a more critical analysis of their work.

I’m sure they will also embrace ‘results based funding’ contracts as and when they start to routinely appear and be interested in negotiating the ‘outcomes’ so there is a shared understanding of what is possible and for what cost. For other agencies that haven’t had the same level of support there is help at hand through the work of the Sported Foundation.

Sported is already providing funding and organisational support to a number of community organisations that use sport to improve the lives of young people in disadvantaged communities.  However, in order to attract additional investment into the sector they need to extend their research programme so that a wider cross section of agencies are collecting and reporting evidence of the impact of their work.  For any organisation wanting to help them make the case for the financial and social value of sport for development it is fairly straightforward; all you have to do is go to http://www.views.coop/views-market/sported and sign up for their web based application which reads in third party crime and health data, for example, and cross references with your project data, such as time and venue of activities, demographic information about participants and the personal outcomes being achieved.

At the end of the research programme Sported will be looking to extend their support across the sector. Those who get involved will already have begun to demonstrate the types of impact they are having as well as getting ready for a new way of funding the work they do now and in the future.

Neil Watson was Director of the Leyton Orient Community Sports Programme, National Director of the Home Office Positive Futures initiative.

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