INTERVIEW
Mills says being deputy chair of London 2012 taught him how important sport can be in inspiring people
OPPOSITE; IT’S ABOUT EVERY SINGLE PERSON – AND THAT’S EXCITING FORMULA 1 IS THE ELITE SPORT OF ELITE SPORTS. SPORTED IS THE EXACT
on a car. This year it takes 2.2 seconds. That shows what you can do if you mea- sure something, you are held to account for it and you have to deliver. If we can do the equivalent at Sported, then we could have an enormous impact.” The recent research findings are all
part of this aim of measuring the impact of the work Sported and its member organisations are doing. On the back of this research, the Sportworks app was launched in May 2013 – a shared measurement tool that allows sport for development organisations to measure the impact and societal cost savings of any planned or actual initiatives. “One thing this sector hasn’t done very
well, is prove that it works,” says Mills. “It was really important to provide the sector with a tool that could really dem- onstrate the economic and social value of sport.”
A BUSY YEAR 2013 has been a big year for Sported. The start of the year saw the char- ity launch its first national fundraising campaign – Choose Sport – and an- nounce a media partnership with The Sun newspaper. Adam Parr’s appoint- ment was announced in April, closely
followed by the announcement of a multi million pound sponsorship deal with Deutsche Bank. This partnership sees the two parties working together to develop Sportseducate, an education programme that will be rolled out across grassroots sports clubs in London. As part of the programme, Deutsche Bank will provide 33 community sports clubs with funding to develop education pro- grammes for 11 to 18-year-olds at risk of exclusion from school. If the three year pilot is successful, the scheme will be ex- panded across the UK. “This is experimental – it’s very new
– but we’re confident it will have a real impact,” says Parr. “Most of these kids do have ambitions, but when they are at school or home and want to do their homework, there are lots of distractions and difficulties put in their way. If you go to a club where the resources are there, you get help, you’ve got a coach who you admire telling you to sit down, and mates there who want to sit down and study, that makes a huge difference.” Also in June, Sported announced that
it had chosen ukactive as its charity part- ner for 2013-2014, something which will be important for raising both funds and awareness of the work of Sported. This is
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important, because as well as supporting individual clubs, championing the sport for development sector as a whole is a key aim for the charity. “Our sector gets a tiny amount of gov-
ernment funding,” says Parr. “I believe that’s because, while it’s actually benefi- cial for the health department, justice department, education department, sports department and home office, it doesn’t fit neatly into anyone’s area, so nobody particularly feels a responsibil- ity for it. It’s important to make sure that when people think ‘I’d like to put something back into society’, they think of our sector. At the moment we’re not even on the radar.”
OLYMPIC LESSONS Mills says that his time as CEO of the bid team and then deputy chair of London 2012 taught him some valuable lessons. When he was appointed CEO, he had no sporting background, and had never been to an Olympic Games. The job showed him how important sport can be as a way of inspiring people, and he says the biggest lesson he learned was what can be achieved when people work together. “Hosting a successful Games required the cooperation of the entire
Issue 3 2013 © cybertrek 2013
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