Subsector partnerships: How Sported engaged its members to improve their impact practice
Inspiring Impact has published a review looking at what lessons can be learned from its first subsector partnership with Sported.
To download the full Inspiring Impact review, please click here.
We are pleased to announce the launch of brand new e-learning resources to help Sported members improve the way they collect and utilise impact data, as part of our ‘Fit for Impact’ programme in partnership with Inspiring Impact.
As a proud sub-sector partner of Inspiring Impact, Sported’s goal is to work towards a Sport for Development sector where high quality impact measurement is the norm.
Our ‘Fit for Impact’ programme has been designed to take our members through a journey to greater impact practice; from understanding the benefits of measuring impact, right through to sustaining good impact practice within their organisations.
The newly launched e-learning resources are the latest addition to Sported’s range of freely available impact measurement member services, which includes our impact measurement tool Sportworks, regional workshops and peer-to-peer learning.
The ‘Fit for Impact’ programme has seen Sported train 19 volunteers to become ‘Impact Champions’, who are currently supporting 40 member groups across the UK to embed and implement best practice, through a mix of one-to-one support and group workshops.
The learning from these existing projects and our work with Inspiring Impact have been handily distilled and captured in the new e-learning resources ‘Impact Practice Learner Journey’ to enable all of Sported’s members to benefit!
It’s packed full of easy-to-understand interactive content, downloadable resources, templates, videos and explanations to help groups develop their understanding of impact practice.
Sported members can access the online Impact Practice Learner Journey through the ‘Your Impact’ section on Your Sported Network.
Emma Heel, Head of Evidencing and Learning at Sported, said: “Sported’s members make an incredible positive impact on young people in their community – we’re here to help them show that. Being able to demonstrate and measure an organisation’s impact is not only become vital for securing funding, but is also important in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of delivery. In partnership with Inspiring Impact we’re determined to help our members, and the Sport for Development sector, lead the way in adopting high quality impact practice.”
On Wednesday 9th September we hosted a special event in Northern Ireland to celebrate the successful completion of our pilot project with Inspiring Impact.
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.
As a programme partner, we have been supporting 20 of our members in Northern Ireland through the pilot, with all the groups pledging their support for the Code of Impact Practice and 18 implementing their own Impact Practice Action Plans, having completed the ‘Measuring Up!’ self-assessment tool.
Through the use of Inspiring Impact’s tools and resources, we have been helping our members to better understand the cycle of impact practice and how they can reliably measure their own impact in order to articulate the difference they are making to their communities.
At the ‘Inspired by Your Impact’ celebrations, our pilot groups were joined by our Chief Executive, Chris Grant, along with a number of our volunteer mentors and CENI staff members. The event provided opportunity to reflect on the key learning and challenges for groups involved in the pilot through a combination of group discussions and individual case studies.
Those involved in the pilot commented on Wednesday evening:
“We knew what we were offering but didn’t appreciate the impact it had……we knew we had a difference but were not measuring this in any way. Involvement in Inspiring Impact has changed this.”
“Measuring Up! was simple and to the point, and taught us how to structure the process of impact measurement in order to imbed it into the organisation.”
“Measuring Up! allows for collective sharing of ideas and reflections at different points of the process”.
“It has been a helpful experience particularly for younger committee members and subcommittee groups. We have a few ideas on how we can adapt the tool to assist us with training volunteers.”
The groups’ commitment to Impact Practice was acknowledged at the close of the event with a ‘Certificate of Completion’, presented by Chris, who highlighted the importance of the pilot programme for Sported’s own learning and development.
