Football Foundation bid to improve sustainability practice

Wed 27th Jul 2011 | Football Stadiums & Facilities

The Football Foundation have launched a Sustainability Toolkit, an action plan to help guide organisations and their projects in today’s difficult economic climate. 

Sympathetic to the challenges that organisations currently face, the toolkit is designed to introduce some of the primary areas to consider when planning the longer term sustainability of a project or organisation. 

Pulling together 12 key topic areas to help the reader start developing a sustainability plan, the Sustainability Toolkit has been tailored to suit either an entire organisation or just an individual project. 

Some of key areas documented for consideration include: 

• Good governance, forming an appropriate and ‘fit for purpose’ structure
• Business planning, writing a business plan and what makes a good one
• Income generation, how to survive beyond the end of a grant
• Workforce development, maximising an organisation’s key asset
• Monitoring and evaluation, assessing the impact of a project
• Partnership working and alignment to strategies, how to strengthen and increase capacity 

Sustainability does not just apply to the continued delivery of services but also to the continued participation and engagement of beneficiaries. After more than a decade of Football Foundation investment our own Monitoring and Evaluation evidence shows that we practise what we preach - participation on sites that we fund increases by an average of 50% when they open, and by a further 25% over the following four years. 

Funded by the Premier League, The FA, and the Government via Sport England, the Football Foundation is the nation’s largest sports charity. Since it was launched in 2000, the Foundation has awarded nearly 8,000 grants worth more than £420m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £520m. 

Helping launch the Toolkit, Sky Sports presenter, Ben Shephard said: “I am delighted to be able to support The Football Foundation’s Sustainability Toolkit. It is an informative and functional guide which takes on even greater importance given the current difficult financial climate. The 12 topic areas easily define the key points for consideration and mean that the process of becoming more sustainable is not a daunting one.”  

“I have visited several Football Foundation funded facilities and understand how important it is for these sites to sustain themselves in order to continue to provide opportunities for the community.” 

Paul Thorogood, Chief Executive of the Football Foundation, said: “Sustainability needs to be an integral part of any plan or project along with who is responsible for it. Our Sustainability Toolkit is designed to guide a grant recipient through what can sometimes seem like a complicated process. I would like to place on record my sincerest thanks to Ben Shephard for taking time out to lend his support to this venture.”  

“We all work in a climate of change with rapidly shifting priorities. Political, social or legislative changes to the landscape on which an organisation sits will often bear consequences for your activities. It is an organisation’s ability to respond to change and a desire to evolve that demonstrates they are dynamic and capable.” 

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