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.
Leading Sport for Development charity, Sported, is delighted to announce that it is one of 13 voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in Northern Ireland to have been awarded a Building Change Award through the Inspiring Impact Northern Ireland 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 Building Change Trust, as the Northern Ireland partner on the UK board, has committed £500,000 matched by a further £188,000 from the Department for Social Development to deliver an initial two year programme of work which will support VCSE organisations and their funders to better understand and embrace impact practice.
Sported, a charity which provides funding and business support to community groups that use sport to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people, will receive funding of £15,000 to act as a leader for impact within the Sport for Development sector.
Sported’s membership of grassroots sport clubs are changing thousands of young lives and tackling some of society’s most complex and challenging problems. Now thanks to funding from Inspiring Impact, Sported will be able to help its members better understand the cycle of impact practice, assess their own impact practice and plan to apply impact practice.
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 programme will complement Sported’s existing array of impact measurement services and resources, most notably its Sportworks and Sportworks Lite tools. These impact measurement tools are the first ever shared measurement system specifically designed for Sport for Development organisations. It enables grassroots sport groups to accurately measure the impact of their respective Sport for Development projects and, uniquely, quantify the cost saving to society as a result, thus providing the much needed business case for further investment.
Brenda Kelly, Northern IrelandManager at Sported, comments:”We are delighted to have been selected by The Building Change Trust to act of leaders for impact in the Sport for Development sector. Accurate impact measurement lies at the heart of developing effective programmes, sharing best practice and attracting funding, so it is fantastic that our members will now have the opportunity to benefit from Inspiring Impact’s fantastic resources.”
Nigel McKinney, Director of Operations at The Building Change Trust comments: “Sported set out an excellent proposal for how they would support their members develop their impact practice and we look forward to working with them and the 12 other grant recipients across Northern Ireland to make a real difference in the coming 12 months”.
