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December 15, 2023
Through innovative grant funding and capacity building assistance, Beyond Sport supports organizations that are using sport to address social issues around the world. One of our commitments is to invest in communities through funds, partnered program design, grant delivery and by providing training opportunities. For the Sport Together Fund delivered by Beyond Sport and the Return to Play Fund founded by Beyond Sport and ESPN, it was an active year for growth and impact.
Sport Together Fund delivered by Beyond Sport
With global forced displacement having reached nearly 110 million people worldwide by the start of 2023, there is substantial need for interventions to support communties in crisis. In 2022, we launched the Sport Together Fund (STF) to provide grants and capacity-building support to non-profits, sports clubs and collectives around the world who are assisting communities facing displacement. It was created with strategic support from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and co-designed by an Expert Advisory Group.
So far, we have donated more than $110,000 through the fund to organizations across Europe, as well as in Turkey. This year we were proud to announce the 11 grantee-partners who are providing a wide range of support to displaced persons — including a significant number of children — migrants and host communities through sports-based leadership training, and programming targeting social inclusion, integration, mental and physical health, resilience and more.
“I like that the universal language of football has become a bridge for my daughter to freely speak with her Swedish peers,” said Oleksandr (Sasha) Fomichov CEO of the League of Tolerance, a STF grantee-partner. “Participating in the Beyond Sport supported program [helped] the coaches and other parent volunteers gain the knowledge and skills to be even more inclusive and sustainable in their work which helps with our physical and mental well-being during such a difficult time for Ukraine.”
To deepen our commitment in the space, we’re also part of the Sport for Refugees Coalition, which provides organizations opportunities to share best practice and whose members have pledged to use sports to improve the lives of refugees.
Building on opportunities in the UK, we also engaged the larger sports sector to support the fund. STF had a presence at the prestigious FEVO Sport Industry Awards 2023 – run by our sister company and Fund Partner, Sport Industry Group (SIG), as well as SportsPro Live 2023. At the latter, we hosted an a booth to raise awareness to attending sports business professionals and a panel featuring Khalida Popal, Founder of Girl Power – an STF grantee-partner, Fund Expert Advisors Lucy Mills and Kat Craig and Beyond Sport Founder and Board Chair, Nick Keller. Popal also made an appearance on stage at the Sport Industry Awards for an emotional moment where she shared her own experiences and how sport can play a vital role in supporting refugees and asylum seekers. It was fantastic to collaborate with SIG, raising funds and amplifying the work of our grantee partners and the STF to the wider sports sector at two of the biggest annual events on the UK sports industry calendar.
Leveraging the international recognition of World Refugee Day in June, we released a campaign to help our audience get to know our inaugural grantee partners. It included a social media video series featuring representatives of each organization speaking on their experiences and the impact of the funded leadership training. Engaging our partners and wider Benchmark (Beyond Sport parent company) staff is also key to expanding STF’s reach and impact. Playing on the competitive nature of sport, we were proud to hold our first-ever STF 24-Hour Challenge the week following World Refugee Day. Bringing together our initial Fund Partners and Benchmark staff, participants virtually cycled the distance from our London office to Kyiv, Ukraine to raise funds and awareness in support of refugees and displaced people globally. The high-tempo event included London grantee-partner, Bloomsbury Football Foundation, and Fund Expert Advisor Lam Joar who himself had been displaced from his home of South Sudan at age 15.
And through our partnership with Fund Partner the New Balance Foundation, we joined New Balance’s EMEA Brand Summit event in September, where 100 New Balance employees helped pack 1000 backpacks for young people with refugee and migrant experiences. Beyond Sport distributed the bags – packed with New Balance goodies and personal notes – to seven sport-based non-profits across France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
The Return to Play Fund
In response to the substantial disparities for Black and Brown youth, which were exacerbated by the pandemic, Beyond Sport and ESPN co-founded the Return to Play Fund (RTPF) in 2021 to use sport to promote youth mental and physical wellbeing, address racial inequities and increase access to safe facilities for recreation in the United States. To engage the public in the effort, particularly amid a decline in sports and play in communities of color, this year we were excited to collaborate on a Public Service Announcement (PSA) produced by ESPN.
Narrated by SportsCenter anchor, Jay Harris, it features youth from a Bronx, New York Boys & Girls Club and calls for equal access for all kids to the resources they need to play sports, especially in underserved communities. The PSA aired across ESPN’s TV and digital platforms with an audio version running on Sirius XM Radio. Beyond Sport also compiled and shared digital resources for parents and guardians, young people, coaches and youth sports providers to help navigate a healthy and equitable return to play. With input and support from RTPF’s Expert Advisory Council members and other trusted sources, the resources – available in both English and Spanish.
We were also proud to announce three new fund grantees supported by Funding Partner, TeamSnap. Through direct funding, policy development and technology grants, TeamSnap supports increased self-esteem, cognitive skills development, career success and improved mental health. With their support, we provided grants to three community-based non-profits – Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago, Heart of Los Angeles and Inter Tribal Sports – who are all using sport with intention to positively impact Black and Brown communities.
Historically, communities of color and low-income communities are much less likely to have access to safe facilities for recreation. Through the fund’s infrastructure pillar, five newly refurbished sports spaces opened this year with support from ESPN and new Funding Partner, Pincus Family Foundation (PFF). Joining a site in Flint, Michigan, this year ESPN support the opening of a space in Miami, Florida. Sites in Charlotte, North Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee will be announcing in 2024. Supported by PFF, we were thrilled to open four spaces across North Lauderdale, Florida, Philadelphia, Pennsyvlania and Baltimore, Maryland to increase the RTPF’s impact.
“This new sports space will have a major impact because children are currently playing in unsafe conditions on the street and they will now have a safe space to play, connect and grow,” said BGCBC Project Manager, Temperance Cascoe on the Broward County (North Lauderdale) build.
Collaboration is key for real impact, and we thank all the organizations and communities involved in transforming the sites and providing ongoing educational opportunities. The builds are being led by global nonprofit, love.fútbol, which partners with communities to create, reclaim and redefine sports spaces as sustainable platforms for social change. Following the transformations, national nonprofit RISE, which educates and empowers the sports community to eliminate racial discrimination, champion social justice and improve race relations, leads on targeted workshops and training session at the sites.
The Return to Play Fund was created to invest across three key areas: Operations & Strategic Guidance, Advocacy and Infrastructure. We were excited to reach more communities in 2023!
For more information on our Funds, please contact: Carly Heinz, Director of Development, Beyond Sport at [email protected].
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