Every year we make a News Year Resolution that we insist we will stick too. However, somewhere between 70 to 95% (depending on which survey you read) of all New Year’s Eve resolutions are doomed to fail. Where will yours stack up in that statistical pile? 

The same is similar to sports funding. We identify lots of sports activities, projects and programmes we want funding for many of which add up to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The key to your organisation being successful in whatever your organisation’s sports funding resolution is for 2013 is to be SMARTER when you set your target. SMARTER because it is an acronym you can test your resolution against:

Here are a few tips to ensure this year your sports funding resolution becomes reality using the SMARTER acronym;

S stands for specific. If you aren’t specific about what you want to achieve with the funding you require how can you honestly know when you have succeeded? “We want to build better facilities at our club ,” simply won’t cut the mustard; “I want to build new changing rooms at our club” will. It is specific so that you know what it is you are setting out to achieve.

M stands for measurable. You need to be able to measure progress or you risk losing motivation. “I want our club to be one of the best clubs in the city/town,” is a laudable aim but is hard to measure. “I want our club to be one of the focus clubs in our city/town,” puts a measure on it and you can tick off 1, 2, 3, 4 and more key landmarks along the way to achieve becoming a focus club and help keep you motivated.

A stands for agreed. If you are involving other people whether that is within your organisation or another organisation e.g. the council’s planning department if you are wanting to build changing rooms at your club (as mentioned in the previous example), they must all agree or you will fail. Beyond that people have a desire for setting resolutions they think others will be impressed by instead of setting targets for themselves. Put another way, your resolution must be something that, deep inside, you agree you can and will pursue, you must agree your resolution with yourself! Half-hearted = doomed to fail.

R stands for realistic. You will know people (you might be one of them) who have big, often alcohol driven dreams every December 31^st who wake on 1^st January to realise there is no way on God’s earth they will achieve their resolution and it bites the dust before it sees its first sunset. Unrealistic can mean plain crazy (e.g. I’m going to build a new club sports ground with ancillary facilities, and I’m going to do over the next 6 months) or ill-conceived such as committing your club to go in every primary school over the next 3 months and deliver  6 one hour taster sessions to entice young people into your club, when you know that work and family commitments will make delivering less taster sessions over a longer period of time in less primary schools is far more realistic.

T stands for time-phased. In short; give yourself a deadline and, if it is a large undertaking give yourself some time-phased check points along the way. So, if you are going to build new changing rooms you have some progressive targets along the way to assess whether you are on target to hit your deadline.

E stands for exciting. Does achieving your resolution excite you? If yes, great; if no, think carefully about trying to implement this because if you aren’t excited by it now the further you get into the project or programme the less likely you will be motivated to achieve it and that will lead to only one thing – failure.

R stands for recorded. Not just a record for yourself but a public record to which you agree to be accountable. This might be as simple as recording this in the minutes of a club committee meeting or it might be sharing your progress in emails to club members. By recording what your resolution is you make yourself accountable for failure.

Please Note: This article was based on and adapted by Jim Cowen's Blog - http://cowanglobal.com/2012/12/28/new-year-new-resolution-new-failure/
 
Funding News

Almost 0.5 billion investment into grassroots sport

Grassroots sport is set to benefit from £493 million over the next four years after Sport England announced its investment in 46 sports to keep the inspiration of London 2012 alive.
All Olympic and Paralympic sports are among the sports benefiting, with 31 sports receiving their largest every investment in grassroots sport.  At least 60% of the investment will support 14- to 25-year-olds and more than £83 million will support the development of talented young athletes in 43 sports.
To find out more click here; http://www.sportengland.org/about_us/our_news/almost_%C2%A305_billion_investment.aspx
 
Olympics funding – winners and losers

Most of Britain’s Olympic and Paralympic sports are celebrating the announcement of funding rises for the next four years but several sports, including swimming, basketball, volleyball and handball, are paying the price for failure with severe cuts to their income.

Winners - UK Sport announced a record pot of £347m to be distributed in the run-up to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, with cycling, rowing, boxing, athletics and gymnastics among those given increases.

Losers - It is a different story for those sports that did not meet their performance targets in London including swimming, whose funding is cut to by 15%, volleyball down by 90%, plus basketball, handball, wrestling and table tennis, which miss out on funding altogether.
 
To find out more click here; http://www.funding4sport.co.uk/2012/12/19/olympics-funding-winners-and-losers/
 
Happy New Year from Funding 4 Sport

Everyone at Funding 4 sport wishes you a Happy New Year and all the funding success in the year ahead.



Richard Sutcliffe
Director
Funding 4 sport