TIED projects encourage 5,000 people to get physically active

Nearly 5,000 people in low socio-economic groups have been helped to get active during the first year of our TIED – Tackling Inactivity and Economic Disadvantage – programme.

Over the past year, the 35 projects that received funding from our Tackling Inactivity and Economic Disadvantage fund have been delivering in disadvantaged communities around the country.

Between them, they received more than £4 million in National Lottery funding which is being put towards engaging inactive people from low socio-economic communities.

5,000

almost 5,000 people have been engaged in physical activity

The work they are doing is helping to inform our future approach to engaging similar participants, and we are starting to see some key lessons from their work.

Throughout October we will be focusing on our work with these projects and the learnings we are starting to gather. We will be sharing their stories, as well as those from other projects that haven’t been funded as part of the TIED programme but are still working with the same groups of people.

The TIED fund was created after our insight showed that a third of people in low socio-economic groups are classed as inactive – doing fewer than 30 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity a week.

Results from our Active Lives Adult Survey also showed that this figure is twice as high as those from more affluent communities.

Most of the selected organisations had never received funding from us before and did not have a track record of delivering sport or physical activity but they wanted to make a difference for the communities in which they work.

The types of projects funded vary from late-night physical activity sessions for shift-workers in Manchester, to a programme of activity sessions at a women’s refuge charity in Yorkshire. They are running for anywhere between one and four years, and have so far engaged nearly 5,000 participants.

Viveen Taylor is our strategic lead for low socio-economic groups and has been leading on the TIED programme.

“I’m delighted that we are investing in projects and organisations that wouldn’t traditionally approach us to support their work,” she said.

"What we're learning from TIED will help us to share more widely the need to think and respond differently to this important group of society when designing programmes that support people from low income groups to think differently about their physical activity.”

Despite being the early stages of this fund, we are starting to see common themes arising from the projects we are working with.

Below you will find a list of early learnings we have collated from the projects to date, split into three phases – preparation, programme design and sustainability.

However, it is important to remember that while there may be common themes emerging, no two groups are alike and that every project has had to find their own way.

It is also important to note that time and patience are common requirements throughout all stages of a project – it takes time to understand the community, build relationships, and to establish trust; it takes time to find the right people, to try different approaches and to understand why something is or isn’t working; and it takes time to create a sustainable project and to build a durable habit amongst participants.

This means that projects tend to be more expensive and can take longer than average to become established.

“We must acknowledge that beneficiaries in this group face daily challenges which can impact on their ability to engage in and ultimately sustain physical activity habits,” Viveen added.

“We are beginning to understand some of these challenges, capturing outcomes and highlighting key successes with some of the projects we have invested in.

“However, we know that success in engaging this audience will rely on a joined up approach with colleagues and lots of different partners – the changes we are looking for will not happen overnight.”

Come back later in the month to read more from the projects themselves on how they are working to engage with their target audience.

If you did not receive TIED funding or did not apply but think you have a project that could benefit from funding, you could try our Small Grants fund.