Following the success of the Inspiring Impact Northern Ireland project in 2014/15, Sported is delighted to announce that it is one of seven voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in Northern Ireland to have been awarded a Building Change Award through the Inspiring Impact Northern Ireland Phase 2 Programme.
Inspiring Impact is a UK-wide initiative that aims to change the way the voluntary and community sector thinks about impact and to make high quality impact practice the norm for charities and social enterprises by 2022. The programme for Northern Ireland is linked to the UK wide Inspiring Impact Programme which is a coalition of some leading third sector organisations across the UK.
The Inspiring Impact Phase 2 programme will build on the learning and resources developed in Phase 1 and will provide intense support to a cohort of four member groups, to enable them to embed the impact practice cycle in their organisational working – to measure, assess and share the difference that they make in their local communities.
In being able to reliably measure their impact and articulate clearly the difference they are making, Sported members will be able to improve their services, attract new funding streams and allocate their revenue more effectively.
The Inspiring Impact Northern Ireland Phase 2 programme will not only complement Sported’s existing array of impact measurement services and resources used to support our members’ impact practice development across the UK, but also support ongoing development in this important area.
Sported are embarking on this important learning journey alongside our member groups. We will continue to ‘practice what we preach’, by further developing how we embed impact practice into our organisational planning and work streams. Building on the learning of Phase 1, we are engaging our staff and volunteers to implement the actions from our own Measuring Up! assessments.
Brenda Kelly, Northern Ireland Manager at Sported, comments: “Sported are delighted to be able to work with our members in Phase 2, to support their ongoing development and understanding of impact. By embedding the impact practice cycle into their work, they will continue to develop their sustainability and planning for the future.”
At Sported, we know our member groups make a massive positive impact in their local communities – the learning from this programme will help them prove it!
About Inspiring Impact
This Project is funded through the Inspiring Impact NI Programme – a Building Change Trust initiative supporting VCSE organisations and their funders to better understand and apply impact practice.
As the Northern Ireland partner on the UK board, The Building Change Trust has invested over £750,000 over a 4 year period (2014-2017) in a dedicated programme of support for the VCSE sector and its funders locally. This has been supplemented with £240,000 from the Department for Social Development (DSD).
For more information, please visit www.inspiringimpactni.org