Clubs and groups

Our vision is to help clubs and community organisations provide great experiences for their participants and workforce in high quality, safe and sustainable environments.

 To do this, we support: 

•  Existing clubs, groups and organisations 

• New and emerging organisations catering for newly-active participants, in establishing customer-focused practices and well-managed environments and structures. 

These ambitions support the five health and social outcomes that drive every investment we make.

We’re working to help organisations develop, grow and become more sustainable in the long-term. To achieve this, we’re:               

• Supporting clubs and groups to help their participants develop more resilient activity habits, by promoting physical progression and ensuring the needs of participants are met.

• Increasing levels of sport and physical activity among women, by addressing the existing inequality in participation among those who are regularly active, and developing a more attractive offering for women and girls. 

• Ensuring that everyone taking part in sport and physical activity is safeguarded physically and mentally, by helping clubs and organisations to improve their welfare and safeguarding practices and promoting robust standards of welfare.

• Increasing levels of sport and physical activity within lower socio-economic groups, by addressing the under-representation of protected groups based on the geographic locations of organisations, and combating actual and perceived barriers to participation among these groups.

• Ensuring that the physical environment provides the conditions for people to be more active, by helping clubs and groups gain access to suitable facilities and driving improvements to existing community facilities.

We’ve created an action plan using our Clubs Plan, which sets out the specific actions we’ll take to achieve our objectives. These include:

• Furthering the development of our insight into club and group participation and people’s attitudes towards it, particularly focusing on young people and people from lower socio-economic groups, to gain a better understanding of non-members and what the challenges and barriers might be for them.
   
• Continuing to develop and extend the range of strategic partners we work with, including organisations within and beyond the sport and physical activity sector, so we can reach out to a wide range of clubs, groups and agencies at a local level through our support resources.
   
• Continuing to invest in Buddle, our digital support platform. This will include the creation of resources for ‘intermediaries’ (those working alongside clubs and groups such as development officers and support workers), to ensure they have the knowledge, confidence and skills to support clubs in an impactful way. We’ll also make stronger links between Buddle and other support resources provided by other agencies.
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• Recognising that face-to-face support is important and can be a vital resource for clubs and community groups. We’ll invest in local/sub-regional organisations to provide focused local support, working with our target audiences.