AISTS MSA 2014 Research Paper - LIU NANCY

AISTS MSA RESEARCH PAPER

Social Entrepreneurship in Sports

NANCY LIU

Lausanne

November, 2014


ABSTRACT

This research paper set out to find out the major challenges social entrepreneurs who

embark on the challenge of using sport to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social

issues face and how they are overcome. Purpose of the paper is to help future social

entrepreneurs in sports understand and be better prepared for the challenges that they

may face. To understand and discover the challenges and solutions to the challenges,

interviews have been conducted with several social entrepreneurs in sports around the

world, and its results carried out in simple case studies and concluded in consolidation of

the findings. In conclusion, the major challenges faced by social entrepreneurs in sports

around the world seem to surround the sustainability of funding with almost no exceptions,

despite of the business models (be it non-profit or profit). To tackle this burning issue, the

recommendation for solution is to spend only the money raised in the previous year in the

current year as well as for the organization to have the beginning focus on building strong

brand equity and/or credibility in order to facilitate the ease of securing funding.

SUPERVISOR(s): ANTONIO DAVILA, PROFESSOR

AISTS MSA 2014 – Research Paper /21 Nancy Liu


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Sport is a powerful platform and educational tool that is rapidly expanding as a vehicle for

social entrepreneurs seeking to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social issues. For

this reason and mainly this, I have decided to take up the challenge of finding out, with this

study, all the nuts and bolts of founding a social enterprise in sports and the possible

challenges that may stand in the way of those who are looking to walk down this path and

most importantly, how those obstacles could be overcome.

The way the research is conducted is through interviews with the founders / CEOs and/or

employee of the already-successful social enterprises in sports around the world – people

leveraging some form of sports in making some social movement / changes, and through

consolidation of the results, all the possible challenges faced / being faced by the social

entrepreneurs interviewed and the solutions adopted by them to overcome the challenges

are listed. This research aims at providing the would-be social entrepreneurs in sport a

guidance of know-how to encourage them or rather help them make the decision of

whether to walk down this path. The focus of this research will be on the “how” i.e. the

challenges and solutions to the challenges, and not on the “why” i.e. should you start a

social enterprise in sports.

In conclusion, the major challenges being faced by the social entrepreneurs interviewed in

this study are lack of funding and the issue of financial sustainability. The way they are

being overcome is through building strong credibility for their brand in order to compete for

the funds and/or spending only the money being raised the previous year in the current

year so as to lessen the stress of constant fundraising.

SUPERVISOR(s): ANTONIO DAVILA, PROFESSOR


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................................2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................3

TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................................4

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................6

LITERATURE REVIEW........................................................................................................7

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................................................................8

RESULTS.............................................................................................................................9

DISCUSSION.....................................................................................................................12

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..................................................................13

REFERENCES...................................................................................................................14

APPENDICES....................................................................................................................15

AISTS MSA 2014 – Research Paper /21 YourFirstName YourLastName

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CEO – Chief Executive Officer

ROI – Return On Investment

NGO – Non-Governmental Organization


INTRODUCTION

Sport is a powerful platform and educational tool that is rapidly expanding as a vehicle for

social entrepreneurs seeking to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social issues. For

this reason and mainly this, I have decided to take up the challenge of finding out, with this

study, all the nuts and bolts of founding a social enterprise in sports and the possible

challenges that may stand in the way of those who are looking to walk down this path and

most importantly, how those obstacles could be overcome. Personally, I am in the process

of turning the idea into action and am almost strolling down this path and thus am quite

eager to consolidate the results in hope to come up with useful findings that will help not

only myself but also other like-minded social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference

through sports.

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to

unite people in a way that little else does.” – Nelson Mandela

Another reason for this study is also that while doing extensive research for starting my

own social enterprise in sports, it was rather difficult to locate any existing research on

social entrepreneurship in sports specifically and so I decided to conduct it myself.

The way the research is conducted is through interviews with the founders / CEOs and/or

employee of the already-successful social enterprises in sports around the world – people

leveraging some form of sports in making some social movement / changes, and through

consolidation of the results, I will list out and categorize all the possible challenges faced /

being faced by the social entrepreneurs interviewed and the solutions adopted by them to

overcome the challenges. This research aims at providing the would-be social

entrepreneurs in sport a guidance of know-how to encourage them or rather help them

make the decision of whether to walk down this path. The focus of this research will be on

the “how” i.e. the challenges and solutions to the challenges, and not on the “why” i.e.

should you start a social enterprise in sports.


LITERATURE REVIEW

Social entrepreneurship is defined1 to be the process of pursuing innovative solutions to

social problems. More specifically, social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and

sustain social value. They draw upon appropriate thinking in both the business and

nonprofit worlds and operate in a variety of organizations: large and small; new and old;

religious and secular; nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid.

Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing

social problems.2

In researching on the relationship between social entrepreneurship with sports, it is evident

that sports portraits an entrepreneurial trait (Chadwick & Ciletti, 2012). Examples of athlete

greats Andre Agassi and Tiger Woods who started educational academies: Playing tennis

or golf is not entrepreneurial; however, by applying their wealth toward starting entities with

a social purpose, these men have become social impact entrepreneurs. “Those who earn

large sums in sports have a huge opportunity to have a social impact.” according to

professor Kenneth L. Shropshire (Chadwick & Ciletti, 2012). On the other hand, Kenneth

states that there are entrepreneurial sports ventures that are created specifically to have a

social impact. Some of these enterprises have built-in methods of sustainability, via a

business operational revenue plan or a strong funder development plan. He goes on to

say that the sports enterprises that do intend to have a social impact typically plan to do so

for one of two reasons or a blend of the two: increasing brand equity (and presumably

having an impact on profitability), or just the altruistic desire to do good.

In seeking the right sample of social enterprises in sports to conduct the interviews with

along this research, the above definition and explanations helped identify the right people.

Although the purpose of this research isn’t set out to define and discover the “why”, it

certainly helped with locating the right groups of targets.

1 Source: Wikipedia2 Source: Ashoka


RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To understand the major challenges for social entrepreneurs in sports and how they are

overcome, interviews have been conducted with several social entrepreneurs in sports

around the world, covering all major continents and regions that include North America,

South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Following are the sample

questions sent to the founders of such organizations (as mentioned above) prior to the

interview and depending on the direction of the actual interview, slight adjustments have

been made.

Initial idea

-What made you start (organization name)?

-Why did you start?

Start

-How did you build the right team?

-What is your business model?

-Donations? (How did you persuade?)

First challenges

-What are your major challenges since the start?

-How did you overcome the challenges?

-What are some challenges you foresee in the future?

Changes to the idea

-How did you evolve after solving challenges?

Growth

-What is the current status of the organization?

-What are your plans for expansion?

Keys to Success

-What is success to you?

-How do you measure success?

-How do you measure the ROI?

-How can you improve?


Risks

-What are the major risks for the organization? At the start, currently and in the future.

Recommendation for other social enterprises in sports and contacts.

The research is based on simple case studies with each enterprise interviewed and

conducted through using qualitative approach. The source of information collected is

mainly focused on primary data obtained by interviews with the founders of the social

enterprises, and some secondary data online and on journals, literature reviews etc. The

main limitation for this research method is the number of social entrepreneurs that were

reachable and were able to spare enough time to provide sound and useful information for

the purpose of the research.

RESULTS

Case Study 1: Right To Play

Background information: Right To Play is a global organization, using the transformative

power of play to educate and empower children and youth. Through playing sports and

games, Right To Play teaches children essential life skills that help them overcome the

effects of poverty, conflict and disease so they can create better futures and drive lasting

social change in their communities and beyond. Founded in 2000 by four-time Olympic

gold medalist and social entrepreneur Johann Olav Koss, Right To Play's programs are

facilitated by more than 13,500 local volunteer coaches and more than 600 international

staff.3

Subject(s) of interviews: Johann Olav Koss4, President & CEO; Nicole Moran, Program

Director, Switzerland

On building the right team.. Johann believes that people get recruited and stay when their

personal values are aligned with the values of the organization so it’s important for the

organizations to live the values they set. And it was for this very reason - the personal

alignment of values that Nicole decided to join the organization.

On major challenges faced and ways to overcome the challenges…

3 Source: Wikipedia4 Most recently, Johann received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year Special Citation award for social entrepreneurship. He is also an Ashoka Fellow.


Challenge 1: Financial sustainability – constant fundraising is needed and causes

unnecessary stress for everyone on the team.

Solution: The way Johann “innovatively” solved the problem or figured out the solution for

this particular problem (and something he advised future social entrepreneurs running

non-profits to do) is to spend only the money raised the previous year in the current

calendar year so to take away the stress of fundraising that is common to non-profits. He

recommended to spend a year raising money and only spend the money raised that year

in the following year.

On the regional/country level, Nicole solved the problem of lack of funding by networking,

going to events, conferences, presenting Right To Play to corporations in Switzerland (she

mentioned that it helps to secure big name donors first and then become more credible

and “easier” to secure other smaller donors). She also addresses that the current

challenge on the regional level is to keep those established relationships, to keep people

motivated to continuing to support Right To Play financially and offers her solution of

continuing to do quality work, providing quality report on time, keeping the donors up-to-

date, giving them the feeling that it is the Right To Play family they belong to and to invite

them to different events etc. to keep them engaged. Not only that, Right To Play

Switzerland have also joined extensive networks, such as became a part of the network for

education, international education and also planning on joining the network of health so to

get more connected with other NGOs, get more visibility and to be seen as a key actor in

education and health. All the above-mentioned will help them build more credibility in order

to secure more funds.

Challenge 2: To maintain a well-run board.

Solution: Good and constant communication to the board members. Set clear expectations

before they join the board and to have a strong chairman that can be strong enough to

handle misbehaviors and give the ones misbehaving a good exit.

For more information on Right To Play and details of the interview, see Appendix 1.

Case Study 2: Sports Without Borders

Background information: Sports Without Borders is a not-for-profit organization which

provides support for young people from new and emerging communities to overcome the

barriers of participation in community sport.5

Subject(s) of interviews: James Demetriou, Chair

5 Source : http://www.sportswithoutborders.org/overview/


On building the right team.. James and his son, Tom, started Sports Without Borders, and

partnered up with the Australian Multicultural Foundation and worked with the people they

recommended to bring to the team.


Challenge 1: Financial sustainability – main source of funding, government grants, were on

strict budget constraint.

Solution: The way James came over the challenge was through innovation and adaptation.

Funding for social ventures is always an issue in Australia, knowing that, they had to

become the thought leader in this space. Example: Used to do a lot of scholarships in the

early days for kids to join clubs. However, governments didn’t like that because they didn’t

believe it to be sustainable. So, to innovate, they developed their social inclusion through

sport program and they started to build leadership pathway programs, and then put the

scholarships at the end of that program so they still incorporated what they started with but

they adapted and started to develop more programs to build capacity in those sporting and

multicultural organizations and did it with local government and migrant resource centers

and other community multicultural organizations and from there, they started to develop

their advocacy model, which was how to make a name for themselves and the sector and

they developed 3 years ago a national community sport conference, covering multicultural

problems, women, disadvantaged poor people, people with disabilities, lesbians, gay, etc.

It was a platform to develop a major advocacy and policy instrument in the conference and

they are the thought leader in this field at the moment. To solve the problem of

sustainability (of funding), James used a “whole of community” approach to sport which

has allowed them to become more sustainable, because there is more stakeholders, the

whole community is involved from local government communities, state governments,

sporting clubs, state sporting organizations, the Australian Sports Commission, they are all

involved. Thus, more resources were attainable.

“You want to go to your grave knowing that you have left an important legacy.” “You got to

make the place a better place to what you came into.” - James Demetriou

For more details of the interview, please refer to Appendix II.

Case Study 3: StreetFootballWorld

Background information: Streetfootballworld is a worldwide network of organizations that

uses football as a tool to empower disadvantaged people. By connecting with partners


from sport, business, politics and philanthropy, streetfootballworld brings global power to

local initiatives.6

Subject(s) of interviews: Jürgen Griesbeck, Founder & CEO

On building the right team.. Jürgen states that the employees he hires needs to be

attracted by the story and the vision of what this could develop into and those that could

see themselves as a part of it. In the beginning stage, the people that came onboard would

need to have the passion as salary may not be applicable (though they never hired

volunteers). And then, when the organization became more established, salary would and

could be part of the consideration. Jürgen, however, stresses that he doesn’t believe that

the work done in this field should be voluntary and should be paid for and that they want to

compete in the market for good people.


Challenge 1: Constant fundraising took away the focus of the organization on thinking

strategically on how to go about the work in terms of social impact.

Solution: Theory of change – changes to the business model so as to allow the funding of

the organization not relying on fundraising and instead automatically sustaining.

DISCUSSION

The results were not out of expectations as the findings from the case studies in the

previous chapter indicate the major challenge of social enterprises in sports to be a

funding issue, i.e. the lack of funding and the issue of financial sustainability. As there was

no literature review on this topic found, I had no presumptions of what the major

challenges could be. Although knowing social enterprises, mainly non-profits, face this

particular issue, the result was not out of expectations. The ways to tackle this particular

issue as recommended by the interviewees are as follow:

To spend only the money raised the previous year in the current year

Make building strong credibility / brand equity a priority in the beginning phase

On the first point, it is quite a sound recommendation as it does take the pressure off your

entire team to constantly worry about raising more money and instead make the focus be

on delivering quality work. The latter point is an important one as it helps future

entrepreneurs to be aware of what is important to do in the start for their organizations

6 Source: http://streetfootballworld.org/who-we-are


(perhaps to set in the first strategic goals when setting out on starting the organization, be

it non-profit or profit.)

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In conclusion, knowing the challenges and how they have been and could be overcome, I

do believe that sport has a great potential to be leveraged for social change and I do

encourage future social entrepreneurs to step down this path, with one prerequisite:

Passion. Although, this paper did not set out to discover nor discuss the “why” (i.e. why

you should start a social enterprise in sports), I do want to conclude that, through the

entire research period, and through all the interviewees, I have discovered the secret to

the success of these social entrepreneurs in sports, and that is – Passion, you have to be

truly passionate about the cause / social issue you are setting out to solve.

Knowing that the major challenge to start your social enterprise in sports is funding and

how to sustain it and the consolidated solution being mentioned in the previous chapter, I

would recommend the future to-be social entrepreneurs in this field to fully prepare to take

on this challenge by starting to build your network and best prepare yourselves to build a

strong brand (you, the founder, being part of that brand).

The limitation for this paper is the number of samples that were interviewed. The results

would have more validation should the samples be bigger. Although, this may also be due

to the niche and size of this “market” as one of the interviewees pointed out as below.

“One thing I have realized on my journey around the world, there is less and less of us.” –

Ash Smith, CEO, Athletes Dream Pty Ltd

Hope this paper serves as, if not anything else but, a motivation and encouragement for

the ones watching and waiting on the other side of the fence.


REFERENCES

Books

Chadwick, Simon. Ciletti, Dorene. Sports Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice. Fitness

Information Technology, 2012

Websites

Right To Play www.righttoplay.com

StreetFootballWorld www.streetfootballworld.org

Sports Without Borders www.sportswithoutborders.org

Cookie www.amisdecookie.ch

Bangalore Youth Football League www.byfl.in

Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools www.bbfootballschools.com

Athletes Dream www.athletesdream.com.au


http://www.athletesdream.com.au/

http://www.bbfootballschools.com/

http://www.byfl.in/

http://www.amisdecookie.ch/

http://www.sportswithoutborders.org/

http://www.streetfootballworld.org/

http://www.righttoplay.com/

APPENDICES

Appendix I: Detailed notes from interview with CEO of Right To Play, Johann Koss

How to build the right team

Culture you want to create, the people you want to recruit, signing up for the vision and

mission and the guiding principle of the organization and the values you have set. Those

are the fundamental drivers for the culture you create. Then you have to kind of live those

values, and people get recruited based on that, they stay when their personal values are

aligned with the values of the organization.

Evaluation of people based on both performance and behavior (both how great they do

and HOW they do it)

Change

Evolve (how to do better): Ran 8 years without worrying about how people were doing it.

Performance vs. Behavior align with Values you set (what does it mean) and

write/describe the behavior you see and evaluate people: do they act that way or not in

different situations.

What is performing well – depends on what role they play, what is the output from one

individual, when you have different projects, different activities, do they do it on time, the

quality of their work, either do they keep to their promise. What were the expectations.

Brainstorming session to set the KPIs for a specific job. What does it mean when a coach

inspires a child, what does it look like, describe what that is/means.

Business Model

Charity – donation-based. Traditional charity. Public sector funding and private funding.

Government sign contracts, long term and short term, in relation to specific areas,

outcomes which you need to achieve. Build on result-based management system, a

performance structure for NGOs - log frame: build up the activities, input = output +

impact. Forced to do so due to public funding, adopted to private sector funding. Private

sector is more unrestricted funding, gives you the ability to use the money where you need

it instead of where they want you to spend it.

Registered in many countries, as a charitable organization, no global registration system,

need to register in each country, if you want to have tax exempt, every country has

different legislations, they all need a local board, so that is complex due to government


reasons. Separate boards in different countries/regions. International board overseeing the

boards around the world. They (each board) have to be independent but consolidate all

financials due to the interdependency, there is a corporation agreement between the

national and international board that describes the relationship, so they can use the brand.

Part of the governance of the organization related to the local legislations. When

implementing programs, can be registered as an international NGO in many of the

countries, so there is the international board that is responsible. No need for separate

boards.

50:50 private:public funding. Offer individuals tax exemptions. A good donor should

believe in your cause and not just going for the tax exemption.

Challenges

Set out to be an NGO. Still have funding sustainable issues. Raise money every year.

Fluctuation of income.

- Constant fundraising: stressful. Not enough demand. (Raising money to help the

most disadvantage) Commitment doesn’t go through. Deals fall through. (CEO’s

optimism help pull through during the toughest times. Balanced with realism.

Believe that it will come true, you will get through) (Through all the 90s, CEO payed

from his sponsorship, to make it happen, no agreement. 1994-2003. Now has a

salary, since 2003. Board now decides for CEO’s pay. Beginning of board, ask

friends and family. Eventually, growth, broader responsibilities, due to importance of

governance, need a separate board, independent. Be on the board and get payed,

Canada legislation for example, need to get approval from supreme court of

Ontario)

- How was the buy-in of the team members (board members: volunteer; staff: payed)

attained? Goes back to the behavior of the individuals and the board. It’s important

to set the expectations before they join the board, issues: some people get nervous

(conspiracy theory) Good communication to the board members is essential, give

the ones misbehaving a good exit, and chairman is key (the most important

decision to make for the founder). Note: Good to have a strong chairman, strong

enough to handle misbehaviors.

- Spend a year just raising money. (Important lesson learnt) Only spend that money

the next year. So you already have the capital. Good cash flow. You know how

much you are able to spend next year. Secure funding a year ahead is crucial

(relieve stress for everyone) Fundraising doesn’t get easier year by year. Not sure


about the reason. When your brand is not established (hard to build brand

recognition), hard to compete with Save the Children, Red Cross etc. for funding.

Future

- Still involved. Somebody else take over from the leadership team. Maintain the

quality of the work and growing the business so can continue being successful.

Baby became a teenager, let go of the teenager, but make sure they are in good

shape (metaphor).

Side Notes

- Leverage personal network with athletes as ambassadors (do not involve their

agents if already friends) Turned down the athletes who ask for money, positions

etc.

- Good leadership: communicate well your expectations clearly so people know and

can follow well. Get feedback promptly. No delay.


Appendix II: Detailed notes from interview with Chair of Sports Without Borders,

James Demetriou

Why Did You Start Sports Without Borders?

In 2006, the Victorian Government in the Multicultural Commission reached out to see if

James could assist them with newly arrived communities in Melbourne and support them

through offering sport scholarships for them to join local sporting clubs. At the same time,

the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report indicating that newly arrived families

in Australia are 2/3 less likely to play sports in Australia. Same time, James’s son, Tom,

was doing a graduate diploma in the area of social entrepreneurship, developing a social

media platform for the purposes of building awareness of social issues. James got his

platform to deliver a multilingual website to develop awareness of newly arrived

communities in Australia, along with a small grant from the government to do a pilot report,

afterwards, developed into the concept of Sports Without Borders.

James’ parents came from Cyprus, born and raised in Australia. Migrant background.

Grew up in low/middle-class suburbs. James and brothers fell in love with sports and

joined local clubs that assisted them in integrating into the Australian society. Played

senior AFL football. James was a semi-professional player, while doing law school. Older

brother eventually became the CEO of the Australian Football League (AFL). What

prompted James to start Sports Without Borders is when he was growing up, there were a

lot of prejudice for newly arrived communities to play sports. And situation got worse

through time. A lot of these immigrants came from enormous hardships. James felt

fortunate in sports and thought it was time to give back. Tried to fix the wrong that was

there. At the same time, his son, Tom was doing a major social media in social venture

program. It all came together. James felt it was important to fix a problem that existed and

someone had to take leadership to try to solve the problem (perhaps by raising awareness

of the problem first and to get the buy-ins of people and the stakeholders to help fix the

problem together).

How Did You Build The Right Team?

James and his son, Tom, founded Sports Without Borders. Went to the Australian

Multicultural Foundation and became their partner and they recommended people to bring


to the team. Never more than 3 employees (many volunteers: students doing community

sports or doing sports entrepreneurs. Provide training to them. A lot of them go on to lead

senior positions in sport in Australia). Built a small cohesive team using the

recommendations of the people given by the Australian Multicultural Foundation, and has

been almost the same team for 8 years.

What Is Your Business Model?

Instead of trying to build a business model right away, James started by continually setting

assumptions, searching and validating their business model. Ended up with building and

aligning themselves with partnerships, with groups of people that are strong in their sector,

and built that up with government – local, state, federal, and migrant resource centers and

local sporting and elite sporting organizations and built partnerships along those lines,

because they didn’t have people to market themselves so they developed through social

media, awareness campaigns and their distribution channels to distribute their

product/service to people in Australia. In the end result, because their partners have

already strong distribution channels and they allow Sports Without Borders to partner with

them to leverage their databases and their knowledge to get them into the market very

quickly. Further leveraged social media platforms, such as multilingual websites, online

applications, Twitter and Facebook etc., to spread their message across Australia to

multicultural and other disadvantaged groups.

Leveraged all the government grants available in Australia, also aligned themselves

through their partners with large private philanthropists for funding. The partners helped

builtd up credibility. “Once you align with the right partners, you are given almost like an

implied credibility.” They never did things in large, they did small pilots all the time to build,

search, test, search, validate, search, pivot and once they knew it was going to work, they

then rolled it out in multiple projects across Victoria and New South Wales.

Challenges

Main challenge is the government tier in Australia is going into strict budget constraint, so

federal and state governments are clamping down on any money being paid to community

organizations. So impact on philanthropical organizations are to be expected. However,

James does see it as an opportunity to innovate, i.e. be smarter to work with large

corporations that have CSR programs. In short, the current main challenge is where to find

the funding. The way James came over the challenge was through innovation and

adaptation. Funding for social ventures is always an issue in Australia, knowing that, they

had to become the thought leader in this space. Example: Used to do a lot of scholarships


in the early days for kids to join clubs. However, governments didn’t like that because they

didn’t believe it to be sustainable. So, to innovate, they developed their social inclusion

through sport program and they started to build leadership pathway programs, and then

put the scholarships at the end of that program so they still incorporated what they started

with but they adapted and started to develop more programs to build capacity in those

sporting and multicultural organizations and did it with local government and migrant

resource centers and other community multicultural organizations and from there, they

started to develop their advocacy model, which was how to make a name for themselves

and the sector and they developed 3 years ago a national community sport conference,

covering multicultural problems, women, disadvantaged poor people, people with

disabilities, lesbians, gay, etc. It was a platform to develop a major advocacy and policy

instrument in the conference and they are the thought leader in this field at the moment.

To solve the problem of sustainability (of funding), James used a “whole of community”

approach to sport which has allowed them to become more sustainable, because there is

more stakeholders, the whole community is involved from local government communities,

state governments, sporting clubs, state sporting organizations, the Australian Sports

Commission, they are all involved. What it also requires is more resources and more

project management, so whilst they were able to get more funding to do this, it also made

them more like project managers which was not what they originally wanted to do.

What Are Your Plans For Expansion?

Expansion for James is not about huge growth or being a big player, it’s about developing

innovative programs that will lead the way and the narrative in Australia and elsewhere. So

what they are doing is trying to work out how to develop more innovative programs that will

not cost them a lot of money and they can sustain themselves to be able to do that, so

they are thought leaders and develop innovative pilot programs and they show people the

way.

Sports Without Borders has doubled in income and expenditure.

What Is Success to You?

Success to James is basically changing people’s ideas and getting them to see that there

is a different way of delivering or developing programs in the multicultural space. They

(Sports Without Borders) are a change agent. Success to them is if people adopt what

they have developed as pilots and they develop it into mainstream activities. Success to

them also mean increasing the number of young people that have access to sport

participation in Australia in the multicultural area. Third, success to them is aligning


themselves with other credible partners that have the same mindset and wish to work with

them. Finally, another factor of success to James is to have developed good people that

will one day not just work for them but work elsewhere and basically be disciples of what

they believe in.

How Do You Measure The ROI?

1. Number of children / young people that are playing sport

2. The success of their programs judged by the young people themselves, the

communities and the government

3. The number of grants they are able to get and to sustain and repeat them

4. Are they seen by their peers and the sector to be good citizens, do they deliver and are

they credible

How Can You Improve?

Always keep educating and building the knowledge of the people and volunteers that work

with Sports Without Borders. Build their capacity.

By developing newer programs all the time or providing incremental increases, innovation

in the existing programs. Pick the best programs and continuingly improve them and then

look at new programs that can improve or find a solution to an existing problem.

What Are The Major Risks For The Organization? At The Start, Currently And In The

Future.

At the start, it was “is this the right space to be in, is there a problem?” so the risk was do

you put all your efforts in and raise money for something you are not quite sure of. In the

early days, always the risk was searching and validating your hypothesis on what an

organization should do. Second risk in the beginning is funding and third, credibility. In the

second, third and fourth year, once they started to do the programs, the big risks were

resourcing, funding, the people and project management.

Current risks is you have to make sure to keep reinventing yourself, if not, you will die, and

success itself (can be a risk), and keeping your good staff. Final risk now is to stay

relevant to change with the government and people.

The risk foreseen for the future for Sports Without Borders is staying the current size and

not getting too big, and to stay as an innovative and nimble organization.


AISTS MSA 2014 Research Paper - LIU NANCY

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