Adaptability in Crisis and Beyond: How the CHANGE Project is Reshaping Sport Programs

Mention grassroots and our brains fire to pull up words and phrases like local, community, or an image of a meadow. They are organic programs that serve the unique needs of local communities. Grassroots sport programs are the lifeblood of youth and amateur sport and a vital part of community living.

Much like grass, though, grassroots programs need assistance from above if they want to reach their full potential. Funding, tools, and resources from national sport federations act like sunshine and rain to help bring a program to life.

The problem is, though, that there can be a disconnect between the national federations and the local programs. The grassroots programs see firsthand what the community needs and are able to identify and quickly respond to emerging issues and evolving situations. The national federations, on the other hand, have a hundred different things on their plates and are further removed from specific community needs.

This is the gap that an EU-funded project is trying to fill.

What is the CHANGE project?

The CHANGE project, led by The European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation (ENGSO) and steered by project manager, Lovisa Broms, is an EU project that promotes innovation and change management in large sporting entities like national sport federations to help them help grassroots sport programs. The project has 11 partners across nine European countries, including national sport federations, national Olympic committees, research partners, and expert groups like Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI).

Recent events like the global pandemic and international conflicts revealed the need for innovation and adaptability in sport programs in times of crisis. The project isn’t focused solely on adaptability during crises but the need for change became evident during these events. The project wants to ensure that sport entities and grassroots programs have the management structures, frameworks, and tools in place to be prepared for and facilitate change when the need arises.

To do this, stronger relationships and clearer communication are needed between the large governing bodies and the programs at the ground level.

“Sometimes national sport federations think they are supporting local sport clubs, but when you go speak to the clubs you find out that there are other needs or other things that need to be addressed,” says Alessia De Iulis, project coordinator at ENGSO. “We’re trying to build and strengthen this connection,”

Research suggests that grassroots sports programs have the ability to identify and respond to emerging participant needs quickly, but that some, “top-down policies and restrictions from external stakeholders can limit the ability of grassroots organisations to respond to contextual needs.”

According to Marisa Schlenker, SandSI’s CHANGE project coordinator, sometimes large sport bodies have great resources, frameworks, and tools, but those supports just don’t make it down to the grassroots level of sport. The same goes for addressing the complex challenges presented by the climate crisis.

How is the CHANGE project strengthening relationships?

“We are focusing on innovation and change management,” says De Iulis. “Specifically, we will focus on three different pillars: sustainability, inclusion and digitalisation.”

The three pillars will drive the research behind the project and be complemented by three corresponding expert groups that will advise on the findings and content produced by the project.

The sustainability pillar is not limited to the growing climate emergency, although that is a key component, but it also includes objectives to ensure that new techniques across all three pillars are sustained long term.

“You can implement new ideas and initiatives,” says Sara Massini, secretary general at ENGSO, “but if you don’t change the management process, then after a short while the program reverts back to its old methods.”

“Our idea is not to reinvent the wheel,” says De Iulis. “We want to put together the expertise of our partners and our expert groups to create a digital toolkit that sport organisations can use to guide their innovation and change management practices.”

The digital toolkit is in the design and development phase and discussions are ongoing about what the final version will look like and how it can be best used. 

For large sport organisations that are sometimes slow to change or out of touch with the reality of ground level activities, it will be important to embrace and implement the findings of the CHANGE project,

“It is important that federations start to understand how they can adjust and how they can approach their work in a new way,” says Massini. “They need to be prepared to change and understand how to adapt to the social, economic, and environmental changes that are impacting their field.”

What is SandSI’s role in the CHANGE project?

SandSI’s primary role in the project is to configure the expert group on sustainability. Using its extensive network of experts and sport organisations globally (and even stretching beyond that), SandSI is putting together a group that will advise on the sustainability pillar of the project.

“There is some research around how grassroots organisations are grappling with environmental sustainability,” says Schlenker, “but we want to develop a better understanding of what grassroots organisations are dealing with when they are confronted with environmental crises.”

Over the course of the 3-year project that started in September 2022, SandSI will also lead webinars to update stakeholders on key sustainability and sport topics as well as to generate interest in the project’s findings in the sport community.

To find out more about the CHANGE project, or other projects that SandSI is working on, sign up for our newsletter, read our blog, follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter, and become a member if you haven’t already.