Community Sport Organisational Development

Phase 1 of Sport Unites (2018-2021) was successful in supporting organisations to tackle social issues through sport and physical activity.

In Phase 2 (2021-2025) we would like to also support organisations through more than just grant funding and seek guidance from community experts to help us do that.

The understanding that community sport organisations need more than just financial resource has become particularly pertinent following the COVID-19 pandemic. According to SportEd’s March 2020 survey, many community sport organisations were already in survival mode before the crisis began, and therefore the crisis is potentially leading to a large number of organisations which are critical to physical activity in London going into administration – a quarter of those surveyed in March 2020 were concerned that they would not be around in six months' time. The situation did improve thanks to emergency funds and volunteer-led groups managing to survive by incurring little to no costs, but the difficulty was of course for those organisations with fixed costs which could not easily be covered. 

Alongside the Sport Unites Fund, we will be offering all our grantees the opportunity to access our organisational development programme. We are looking to pilot an approach through July 2021 to June 2022, that will support the health and growth of organisations, as well as the individuals working and volunteering within those organisations.

Applications for a lead delivery partner have now closed.