Unlocking the full Power of Sport to Create Positive Social Impacts: The RISE Movement
Speak to your friends and family about sport and you will find many who can tell you about the positive effects it has had on their lives, like increasing confidence, life skills and friendships. However, you will also find some who have a different experience. Feeling weak, inadequate and aggressive coaches focused on winning at all costs can create feelings of exclusion and turn sport into a negative experience.
Sport has the potential to connect, inspire, and motivate people to achieve great results in their athletic, professional and personal lives, but much of this potential to do good is still left unused. How can we unlock this power? This is the question that RISE, a Sport for Good platform aimed at supporting all sports organisations to recognise, highlight and maximise the good they do, is seeking to answer.
How does RISE support sports organisations?
With its roots in an Erasmus+ project, between seven European organisations, RISE is led by SPIN Sport Innovation from Germany. Whether it’s community building, peace building, employment initiatives, environmental protection, or other social impacts, RISE will provide sport organisations with tools they need to unlock the full power of sport to do good, through the combination of a Sport for Good Quality Label, educational resources, and a supportive community.
“Sport for good is the idea of using sport as a tool to not only achieve athletic development or success, but also to achieve a higher good, like personal development, educational success, or social outcomes. It’s sport as a tool to do good in society,” explains Dirk Steinbach, managing director and co-founder of SPIN.
Often it is assumed that sport is inherently good, that participation alone will guarantee a positive outcome. RISE underscores that the key to unlocking the power of sport is being intentional about doing good. To achieve this, RISE will:
Highlight; showcase and recognise the good done by sports organisations through a Sport for Good Quality Label
Educate; empower organisations via practical, grassroots-led resources to become better organisations delivering more impactful programmes.
Connect; build a community where best practices and ideas can be exchanged between stakeholders.
“Positive social outcomes can be a byproduct of playing sports, but if you want to use sport as an instrument to specifically achieve those positive outcomes, you need to do it with a plan and a clear methodology behind it,” says Steinbach. “This is what RISE wants to achieve.”
What is the RISE Sport for Good Quality Label?
The RISE Sport for Good Quality Label is a self-evaluation where members have the opportunity to assess their own structure and work against criteria developed from within the sector. If it meets the criteria, organisations can receive the RISE Quality Label to showcase and highlight the good they are doing to their own members, donors, sponsors and partners.
“The label has two levels where it can make an impact. Number one is that it is a quality development tool,” says Steinbach. “So, as a sport organisation, you're going for the label, and you will engage in a process that helps you become aware of your strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, this will make it easier for participants, volunteers and donors to find organisations who have the same values and are making the change that they want to see in the world.”
RISE is aimed at all types of sports organisations, not only those that specialise in using sport for social change but also traditional sports clubs. RISE is an opportunity for such clubs, who may not place such an emphasis on social change, to engage themselves more specifically, consciously and systematically to create positive social impact and sustainable development.
“A sports club that wins the regional championship in basketball has certainly achieved something that has value in itself.” Steinbach explains. “But the impact of its activities on the local community is perhaps the even greater achievement. With its instruments, RISE wants to support all sport organisations for which these outcomes are equally important, and which are determined to become champions in this area as well”.
What makes a ‘sport for good’ organisation?
“To become certified, organisations must excel in two categories. They must ‘Be Good’ and they must ‘Do Good,’” says Steinbach,
The ‘Be Good’ component has to do with being a well-run organisation, which does good internally. To ‘Do Good’, organisations must have a clearly defined route to social impact beyond the boundaries of their own organization.
More specifically, Be Good relates to organisations having good governance in place, which means having fair and transparent financial and operating processes. Their organisation must be a safe and positive place for participants, coaches and volunteers. Furthermore, sports organisations must act in a way that is environmentally responsible.
“Organisations have to act in an environmentally responsible way,” says Geert Hendriks Founding Director of Sport and Sustainability International (SandSI) and Co-Founder of The SHIFT.. “Whether it is reducing the number of kilometres you are driving, abandoning single-use plastic or whatever action you decide to take, you have to respect the ecological impact of your organisation.”
Where RISE feels they can add real value is to the `Do Good´ side of things. Here, organisations have the opportunity to assess and develop their own capacities to make a social impact. In some cases, this may mean sports organisations finding out what their social impact is and how they can amplify it. In other cases, it may mean honing, refining and improving an already well established and functioning social impact methodology.
“There is good in sport, but we need to work to bring it out. By helping organisations to look at how they operate and maximise the good they do, all sports organisations can make a real difference.” says Steinbach.
Interested organisations can sign up to be a part of the RISE movement here. In early 2024 a general pilot of the platform will be launched and by registering now you could be selected to take part.
How does SandSI contribute to RISE?
SandSI, as one of the original partners of the RISE project, is leading the environmental component of the Quality Label criteria and providing its expertise in other areas. This includes conducting research and a literary review, building educational resources like videos and environmental assessments, as well as leading an international workshop to grow the RISE membership.
SandSI’s global network of experts and sport organisations is an asset when it comes to disseminating information and driving project engagement.
“Many projects and initiatives want to build a network of participants, experts, and sport organisations. SandSI already has that network, so our ability to share and exchange information and ideas is exceptionally valuable,” says Hendriks.
To find out more about RISE, or other projects that SandSI is involved in, sign up for our newsletter, read ourblog, follow us onLinkedIn orTwitter, andbecome a member if you haven’t already joined the SandSI network.
