12 Dec 2016
Sport England funding changes making NGBs ‘rethink’ operations
BY Matthew Campelli
Changes made to Sport England’s funding model is encouraging national governing bodies (NGB) to “rethink” operations and become more customer service savvy, according to Jennie Price.
Talking to Sports Management, the grassroot sports quango’s chief executive said that while government subsidy had been refocused away from traditional NGBs in favour of stamping out inactivity, most were “strongly supportive of direction of travel”.
Governing bodies will be made aware of their funding situation over the next few weeks, with a number expecting to lose a significant proportion of exchequer and National Lottery funding.
Sport England’s funding is to become “organisationally neutral”, with money being pumped into schemes that reach inactive and hard-to-reach demographics, regardless of who is organising the initiative.
Price revealed that the organisation has been working with bodies as diverse as the Youth Hostels Association, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the government’s Troubled Families Unit to tackle the inactivity crisis.
Money will still be made available for NGBs to look after their “core market”, and Price said the weaning of public money was starting to make the bodies “really rethink how they’re doing things”.
“We’re asking governing bodies to think about how they relate to us and serve their core market,” said Price. “It’s very challenging and there have been some intense negotiations, but a number of bodies are saying the measures are pushing them to do things that are good for the business.”
Price said that NGBs were now thinking about customer relationship management (CRM), and making their sport more accessible through better online platforms.
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