Back in the autumn, Sport Wales launched ‘A Place for Sport’ – a new funding opportunity for community clubs and organisations to be able to make off-field facility improvements that enhance the overall experience of grassroots sport.
However, this was a very different fund to anything we’ve offered previously as it required clubs to raise at least half of the money themselves by crowdfunding.
As well as enabling investments in projects and ideas that the existing Sport Wales funds didn’t support, the inclusion of crowdfunding means that ‘A Place for Sport’ is about behaviour change as much as funding.
Running a Crowdfunder campaign is, in some ways, an intensive two-month long training course for those club volunteers involved. They learn a host of new skills around member and community engagement, social media communications, business to business marketing and general fundraising. We wanted to use this fund to help clubs become sustainable for the long-term and set themselves up in a way that creates a cycle of success, not simply a positive one-off application process.
Those who are considering a crowdfunding project are encouraged to think about telling their story in the most compelling way so that they really sell their idea to potential donors. They should also take time to properly consider what rewards could be offered in return for donations.
As the Sport Wales x Crowdfunder pilot scheme comes to an end on 31st March 2022, we asked Owen Hathway, Sport Wales’ Assistant Director for Insight, Policy and Public Affairs for his reflections on the process so far…
What’s worked well?
Clubs have created some incredible crowdfunding campaigns that have drawn support from hundreds of individuals. That sort of community engagement has been fantastic. We’ve seen clubs embrace the approach, develop new skills and take public funding from Sport Wales and amplify it several times over.
At the time of drafting this reflection we’ve seen nine projects go through the Crowdfunder process to completion. This has resulted in £32k of investment from Sport Wales combined with around £51k that was raised by the clubs themselves by crowdfunding. So, overall, approximately £83k has gone into improving clubs’ off-field facilities.
When you look in further detail at those eight successful campaigns, you can see how much community engagement was involved. In total, 775 people pledged to these eight campaigns – that’s an average of around 86 people per campaign, with donations averaging £107 per person.
There are also several projects that are either about to go live or have just been approved and are in the early phases of crowdfunding. You can look at the range of projects here – you might even want to back a few!
Doesn’t crowdfunding suit wealthier communities more?
Perhaps the biggest concern with a Crowdfunding approach is that it may be challenging for more deprived communities. However, the feedback and evidence from Sport England (who have been collaborating with Crowdfunder on several of their community funds) bucked the conventional wisdom here. They saw positive engagement and funding into areas of deprivation, and in fact also found their funding was helping to support specific projects targeting inclusivity in sport. I’m really encouraged that what we have seen at Sport Wales mirrors that impact.
Over a third of the projects we’ve supported have been from the most deprived communities in Wales, and a further quarter have been projects that have demonstrated that they are having a positive impact on wider inequalities.
What could we have done better?
We’ve certainly learnt along the way. In the early stages we perhaps expected campaigns to be too perfect, rather than recognising that this was a new approach. As we’ve progressed and created a bank of Welsh club case studies, the quality has been increasing with every application.
We’ve also learnt that we should let the relevant contacts within local authorities and national governing bodies know as soon as we progress a campaign, ensuring there can be a real wrap around in support for a club campaign.
Overall, there is no doubt that what we’ve created is innovative in the sport sector and those clubs that have embraced it have shown it can work. It highlights how sports clubs continue to be a critical community hub, valued and needed from the people they support, and who in turn have supported them.
