AISTS MSA 2014 Research Paper - LIU NANCY

AISTS MSA RESEARCH PAPER
Social Entrepreneurship in Sports
NANCY LIU
Lausanne
November, 2014

AISTS MSA 2014 – Research Paper Page 2/21 Nancy Liu
ABSTRACT
This research paper set out to find out the major challenges social entrepreneurs who
embark on the challenge of using sport to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social
issues face and how they are overcome. Purpose of the paper is to help future social
entrepreneurs in sports understand and be better prepared for the challenges that they
may face. To understand and discover the challenges and solutions to the challenges,
interviews have been conducted with several social entrepreneurs in sports around the
world, and its results carried out in simple case studies and concluded in consolidation of
the findings. In conclusion, the major challenges faced by social entrepreneurs in sports
around the world seem to surround the sustainability of funding with almost no exceptions,
despite of the business models (be it non-profit or profit). To tackle this burning issue, the
recommendation for solution is to spend only the money raised in the previous year in the
current year as well as for the organization to have the beginning focus on building strong
brand equity and/or credibility in order to facilitate the ease of securing funding.
SUPERVISOR(s): ANTONIO DAVILA, PROFESSOR

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Sport is a powerful platform and educational tool that is rapidly expanding as a vehicle for
social entrepreneurs seeking to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social issues. For
this reason and mainly this, I have decided to take up the challenge of finding out, with this
study, all the nuts and bolts of founding a social enterprise in sports and the possible
challenges that may stand in the way of those who are looking to walk down this path and
most importantly, how those obstacles could be overcome.
The way the research is conducted is through interviews with the founders / CEOs and/or
employee of the already-successful social enterprises in sports around the world – people
leveraging some form of sports in making some social movement / changes, and through
consolidation of the results, all the possible challenges faced / being faced by the social
entrepreneurs interviewed and the solutions adopted by them to overcome the challenges
are listed. This research aims at providing the would-be social entrepreneurs in sport a
guidance of know-how to encourage them or rather help them make the decision of
whether to walk down this path. The focus of this research will be on the “how” i.e. the
challenges and solutions to the challenges, and not on the “why” i.e. should you start a
social enterprise in sports.
In conclusion, the major challenges being faced by the social entrepreneurs interviewed in
this study are lack of funding and the issue of financial sustainability. The way they are
being overcome is through building strong credibility for their brand in order to compete for
the funds and/or spending only the money being raised the previous year in the current
year so as to lessen the stress of constant fundraising.
SUPERVISOR(s): ANTONIO DAVILA, PROFESSOR

AISTS MSA 2014 – Research Paper Page 4/21 YourFirstName YourLastName
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................3
TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................4
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................................................5
INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................6
LITERATURE REVIEW....................................................................................................................7
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................................8
RESULTS ...........................................................................................................................................9
DISCUSSION...................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ..........................................................................13
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................14
APPENDICES..................................................................................................................................15

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CEO – Chief Executive Officer
ROI – Return On Investment
NGO – Non-Governmental Organization

INTRODUCTION
Sport is a powerful platform and educational tool that is rapidly expanding as a vehicle for
social entrepreneurs seeking to tackle some of the world’s most urgent social issues. For
this reason and mainly this, I have decided to take up the challenge of finding out, with this
study, all the nuts and bolts of founding a social enterprise in sports and the possible
challenges that may stand in the way of those who are looking to walk down this path and
most importantly, how those obstacles could be overcome. Personally, I am in the process
of turning the idea into action and am almost strolling down this path and thus am quite
eager to consolidate the results in hope to come up with useful findings that will help not
only myself but also other like-minded social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference
through sports.
“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to
unite people in a way that little else does.” – Nelson Mandela
Another reason for this study is also that while doing extensive research for starting my
own social enterprise in sports, it was rather difficult to locate any existing research on
social entrepreneurship in sports specifically and so I decided to conduct it myself.
The way the research is conducted is through interviews with the founders / CEOs and/or
employee of the already-successful social enterprises in sports around the world – people
leveraging some form of sports in making some social movement / changes, and through
consolidation of the results, I will list out and categorize all the possible challenges faced /
being faced by the social entrepreneurs interviewed and the solutions adopted by them to
overcome the challenges. This research aims at providing the would-be social
entrepreneurs in sport a guidance of know-how to encourage them or rather help them
make the decision of whether to walk down this path. The focus of this research will be on
the “how” i.e. the challenges and solutions to the challenges, and not on the “why” i.e.
should you start a social enterprise in sports.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Social entrepreneurship is defined1 to be the process of pursuing innovative solutions to
social problems. More specifically, social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and
sustain social value. They draw upon appropriate thinking in both the business and
nonprofit worlds and operate in a variety of organizations: large and small; new and old;
religious and secular; nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid.
Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing
social problems.2
In researching on the relationship between social entrepreneurship with sports, it is evident
that sports portraits an entrepreneurial trait (Chadwick & Ciletti, 2012). Examples of athlete
greats Andre Agassi and Tiger Woods who started educational academies: Playing tennis
or golf is not entrepreneurial; however, by applying their wealth toward starting entities with
a social purpose, these men have become social impact entrepreneurs. “Those who earn
large sums in sports have a huge opportunity to have a social impact.” according to
professor Kenneth L. Shropshire (Chadwick & Ciletti, 2012). On the other hand, Kenneth
states that there are entrepreneurial sports ventures that are created specifically to have a
social impact. Some of these enterprises have built-in methods of sustainability, via a
business operational revenue plan or a strong funder development plan. He goes on to
say that the sports enterprises that do intend to have a social impact typically plan to do so
for one of two reasons or a blend of the two: increasing brand equity (and presumably
having an impact on profitability), or just the altruistic desire to do good.
In seeking the right sample of social enterprises in sports to conduct the interviews with
along this research, the above definition and explanations helped identify the right people.
Although the purpose of this research isn’t set out to define and discover the “why”, it
certainly helped with locating the right groups of targets.
1 Source: Wikipedia
2 Source: Ashoka

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To understand the major challenges for social entrepreneurs in sports and how they are
overcome, interviews have been conducted with several social entrepreneurs in sports
around the world, covering all major continents and regions that include North America,
South America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Oceania. Following are the sample
questions sent to the founders of such organizations (as mentioned above) prior to the
interview and depending on the direction of the actual interview, slight adjustments have
been made.
Initial idea
-What made you start (organization name)?
-Why did you start?
Start
-How did you build the right team?
-What is your business model?
-Donations? (How did you persuade?)
First challenges
-What are your major challenges since the start?
-How did you overcome the challenges?
-What are some challenges you foresee in the future?
Changes to the idea
-How did you evolve after solving challenges?
Growth
-What is the current status of the organization?
-What are your plans for expansion?
Keys to Success
-What is success to you?
-How do you measure success?
-How do you measure the ROI?
-How can you improve?

Risks
-What are the major risks for the organization? At the start, currently and in the future.
Recommendation for other social enterprises in sports and contacts.
The research is based on simple case studies with each enterprise interviewed and
conducted through using qualitative approach. The source of information collected is
mainly focused on primary data obtained by interviews with the founders of the social
enterprises, and some secondary data online and on journals, literature reviews etc. The
main limitation for this research method is the number of social entrepreneurs that were
reachable and were able to spare enough time to provide sound and useful information for
the purpose of the research.
RESULTS
Case Study 1: Right To Play
Background information: Right To Play is a global organization, using the transformative
power of play to educate and empower children and youth. Through playing sports and
games, Right To Play teaches children essential life skills that help them overcome the
effects of poverty, conflict and disease so they can create better futures and drive lasting
social change in their communities and beyond. Founded in 2000 by four-time Olympic
gold medalist and social entrepreneur Johann Olav Koss, Right To Play's programs are
facilitated by more than 13,500 local volunteer coaches and more than 600 international
staff.3
Subject(s) of interviews: Johann Olav Koss4, President & CEO; Nicole Moran, Program
Director, Switzerland
On building the right team.. Johann believes that people get recruited and stay when their
personal values are aligned with the values of the organization so it’s important for the
organizations to live the values they set. And it was for this very reason - the personal
alignment of values that Nicole decided to join the organization.
On major challenges faced and ways to overcome the challenges…
3 Source: Wikipedia
4 Most recently, Johann received Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur Of The Year Special Citation award for social
entrepreneurship. He is also an Ashoka Fellow.

Challenge 1: Financial sustainability – constant fundraising is needed and causes
unnecessary stress for everyone on the team.
Solution: The way Johann “innovatively” solved the problem or figured out the solution for
this particular problem (and something he advised future social entrepreneurs running
non-profits to do) is to spend only the money raised the previous year in the current
calendar year so to take away the stress of fundraising that is common to non-profits. He
recommended to spend a year raising money and only spend the money raised that year
in the following year.
On the regional/country level, Nicole solved the problem of lack of funding by networking,
going to events, conferences, presenting Right To Play to corporations in Switzerland (she
mentioned that it helps to secure big name donors first and then become more credible
and “easier” to secure other smaller donors). She also addresses that the current
challenge on the regional level is to keep those established relationships, to keep people
motivated to continuing to support Right To Play financially and offers her solution of
continuing to do quality work, providing quality report on time, keeping the donors up-to-
date, giving them the feeling that it is the Right To Play family they belong to and to invite
them to different events etc. to keep them engaged. Not only that, Right To Play
Switzerland have also joined extensive networks, such as became a part of the network for
education, international education and also planning on joining the network of health so to
get more connected with other NGOs, get more visibility and to be seen as a key actor in
education and health. All the above-mentioned will help them build more credibility in order
to secure more funds.
Challenge 2: To maintain a well-run board.
Solution: Good and constant communication to the board members. Set clear expectations
before they join the board and to have a strong chairman that can be strong enough to
handle misbehaviors and give the ones misbehaving a good exit.
For more information on Right To Play and details of the interview, see Appendix 1.
Case Study 2: Sports Without Borders
Background information: Sports Without Borders is a not-for-profit organization which
provides support for young people from new and emerging communities to overcome the
barriers of participation in community sport.5
5 Source : http://www.sportswithoutborders.org/overview/

Subject(s) of interviews: James Demetriou, Chair
On building the right team.. James and his son, Tom, started Sports Without Borders, and
partnered up with the Australian Multicultural Foundation and worked with the people they
recommended to bring to the team.
Challenge 1: Financial sustainability – main source of funding, government grants, were on
strict budget constraint.
Solution: The way James came over the challenge was through innovation and adaptation.
Funding for social ventures is always an issue in Australia, knowing that, they had to
become the thought leader in this space. Example: Used to do a lot of scholarships in the
early days for kids to join clubs. However, governments didn’t like that because they didn’t
believe it to be sustainable. So, to innovate, they developed their social inclusion through
sport program and they started to build leadership pathway programs, and then put the
scholarships at the end of that program so they still incorporated what they started with but
they adapted and started to develop more programs to build capacity in those sporting and
multicultural organizations and did it with local government and migrant resource centers
and other community multicultural organizations and from there, they started to develop
their advocacy model, which was how to make a name for themselves and the sector and
they developed 3 years ago a national community sport conference, covering multicultural
problems, women, disadvantaged poor people, people with disabilities, lesbians, gay, etc.
It was a platform to develop a major advocacy and policy instrument in the conference and
they are the thought leader in this field at the moment. To solve the problem of
sustainability (of funding), James used a “whole of community” approach to sport which
has allowed them to become more sustainable, because there is more stakeholders, the
whole community is involved from local government communities, state governments,
sporting clubs, state sporting organizations, the Australian Sports Commission, they are all
involved. Thus, more resources were attainable.
“You want to go to your grave knowing that you have left an important legacy.” “You got to
make the place a better place to what you came into.” - James Demetriou
For more details of the interview, please refer to Appendix II.
Case Study 3: StreetFootballWorld
Background information: Streetfootballworld is a worldwide network of organizations that
uses football as a tool to empower disadvantaged people. By connecting with partners

from sport, business, politics and philanthropy, streetfootballworld brings global power to
local initiatives.6
Subject(s) of interviews: Jürgen Griesbeck, Founder & CEO
On building the right team.. Jürgen states that the employees he hires needs to be
attracted by the story and the vision of what this could develop into and those that could
see themselves as a part of it. In the beginning stage, the people that came onboard would
need to have the passion as salary may not be applicable (though they never hired
volunteers). And then, when the organization became more established, salary would and
could be part of the consideration. Jürgen, however, stresses that he doesn’t believe that
the work done in this field should be voluntary and should be paid for and that they want to
compete in the market for good people.
Challenge 1: Constant fundraising took away the focus of the organization on thinking
strategically on how to go about the work in terms of social impact.
Solution: Theory of change – changes to the business model so as to allow the funding of
the organization not relying on fundraising and instead automatically sustaining.
DISCUSSION
The results were not out of expectations as the findings from the case studies in the
previous chapter indicate the major challenge of social enterprises in sports to be a
funding issue, i.e. the lack of funding and the issue of financial sustainability. As there was
no literature review on this topic found, I had no presumptions of what the major
challenges could be. Although knowing social enterprises, mainly non-profits, face this
particular issue, the result was not out of expectations. The ways to tackle this particular
issue as recommended by the interviewees are as follow:
 To spend only the money raised the previous year in the current year
 Make building strong credibility / brand equity a priority in the beginning phase
On the first point, it is quite a sound recommendation as it does take the pressure off your
entire team to constantly worry about raising more money and instead make the focus be
on delivering quality work. The latter point is an important one as it helps future
entrepreneurs to be aware of what is important to do in the start for their organizations
6 Source: http://streetfootballworld.org/who-we-are

(perhaps to set in the first strategic goals when setting out on starting the organization, be
it non-profit or profit.)
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In conclusion, knowing the challenges and how they have been and could be overcome, I
do believe that sport has a great potential to be leveraged for social change and I do
encourage future social entrepreneurs to step down this path, with one prerequisite:
Passion. Although, this paper did not set out to discover nor discuss the “why” (i.e. why
you should start a social enterprise in sports), I do want to conclude that, through the
entire research period, and through all the interviewees, I have discovered the secret to
the success of these social entrepreneurs in sports, and that is – Passion, you have to be
truly passionate about the cause / social issue you are setting out to solve.
Knowing that the major challenge to start your social enterprise in sports is funding and
how to sustain it and the consolidated solution being mentioned in the previous chapter, I
would recommend the future to-be social entrepreneurs in this field to fully prepare to take
on this challenge by starting to build your network and best prepare yourselves to build a
strong brand (you, the founder, being part of that brand).
The limitation for this paper is the number of samples that were interviewed. The results
would have more validation should the samples be bigger. Although, this may also be due
to the niche and size of this “market” as one of the interviewees pointed out as below.
“One thing I have realized on my journey around the world, there is less and less of us.” –
Ash Smith, CEO, Athletes Dream Pty Ltd
Hope this paper serves as, if not anything else but, a motivation and encouragement for
the ones watching and waiting on the other side of the fence.

REFERENCES
Books
Chadwick, Simon. Ciletti, Dorene. Sports Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice. Fitness
Information Technology, 2012
Websites
Right To Play www.righttoplay.com
StreetFootballWorld www.streetfootballworld.org
Sports Without Borders www.sportswithoutborders.org
Cookie www.amisdecookie.ch
Bangalore Youth Football League www.byfl.in
Bhaichung Bhutia Football Schools www.bbfootballschools.com
Athletes Dream www.athletesdream.com.au

APPENDICES
Appendix I: Detailed notes from interview with CEO of Right To Play, Johann Koss
How to build the right team
Culture you want to create, the people you want to recruit, signing up for the vision and
mission and the guiding principle of the organization and the values you have set. Those
are the fundamental drivers for the culture you create. Then you have to kind of live those
values, and people get recruited based on that, they stay when their personal values are
aligned with the values of the organization.
Evaluation of people based on both performance and behavior (both how great they do
and HOW they do it)
Change
Evolve (how to do better): Ran 8 years without worrying about how people were doing it.
Performance vs. Behavior align with Values you set (what does it mean) and
write/describe the behavior you see and evaluate people: do they act that way or not in
different situations.
What is performing well – depends on what role they play, what is the output from one
individual, when you have different projects, different activities, do they do it on time, the
quality of their work, either do they keep to their promise. What were the expectations.
Brainstorming session to set the KPIs for a specific job. What does it mean when a coach
inspires a child, what does it look like, describe what that is/means.
Business Model
Charity – donation-based. Traditional charity. Public sector funding and private funding.
Government sign contracts, long term and short term, in relation to specific areas,
outcomes which you need to achieve. Build on result-based management system, a
performance structure for NGOs - log frame: build up the activities, input = output +
impact. Forced to do so due to public funding, adopted to private sector funding. Private
sector is more unrestricted funding, gives you the ability to use the money where you need
it instead of where they want you to spend it.
Registered in many countries, as a charitable organization, no global registration system,
need to register in each country, if you want to have tax exempt, every country has
different legislations, they all need a local board, so that is complex due to government
reasons. Separate boards in different countries/regions. International board overseeing the

boards around the world. They (each board) have to be independent but consolidate all
financials due to the interdependency, there is a corporation agreement between the
national and international board that describes the relationship, so they can use the brand.
Part of the governance of the organization related to the local legislations. When
implementing programs, can be registered as an international NGO in many of the
countries, so there is the international board that is responsible. No need for separate
boards.
50:50 private:public funding. Offer individuals tax exemptions. A good donor should
believe in your cause and not just going for the tax exemption.
Challenges
Set out to be an NGO. Still have funding sustainable issues. Raise money every year.
Fluctuation of income.
- Constant fundraising: stressful. Not enough demand. (Raising money to help the
most disadvantage) Commitment doesn’t go through. Deals fall through. (CEO’s
optimism help pull through during the toughest times. Balanced with realism.
Believe that it will come true, you will get through) (Through all the 90s, CEO payed
from his sponsorship, to make it happen, no agreement. 1994-2003. Now has a
salary, since 2003. Board now decides for CEO’s pay. Beginning of board, ask
friends and family. Eventually, growth, broader responsibilities, due to importance of
governance, need a separate board, independent. Be on the board and get payed,
Canada legislation for example, need to get approval from supreme court of
Ontario)
- How was the buy-in of the team members (board members: volunteer; staff: payed)
attained? Goes back to the behavior of the individuals and the board. It’s important
to set the expectations before they join the board, issues: some people get nervous
(conspiracy theory) Good communication to the board members is essential, give
the ones misbehaving a good exit, and chairman is key (the most important
decision to make for the founder). Note: Good to have a strong chairman, strong
enough to handle misbehaviors.
- Spend a year just raising money. (Important lesson learnt) Only spend that money
the next year. So you already have the capital. Good cash flow. You know how
much you are able to spend next year. Secure funding a year ahead is crucial
(relieve stress for everyone) Fundraising doesn’t get easier year by year. Not sure
about the reason. When your brand is not established (hard to build brand
recognition), hard to compete with Save the Children, Red Cross etc. for funding.

Future
- Still involved. Somebody else take over from the leadership team. Maintain the
quality of the work and growing the business so can continue being successful.
Baby became a teenager, let go of the teenager, but make sure they are in good
shape (metaphor).
Side Notes
- Leverage personal network with athletes as ambassadors (do not involve their
agents if already friends) Turned down the athletes who ask for money, positions
etc.
- Good leadership: communicate well your expectations clearly so people know and
can follow well. Get feedback promptly. No delay.

Appendix II: Detailed notes from interview with Chair of Sports Without Borders,
James Demetriou
Why Did You Start Sports Without Borders?
In 2006, the Victorian Government in the Multicultural Commission reached out to see if
James could assist them with newly arrived communities in Melbourne and support them
through offering sport scholarships for them to join local sporting clubs. At the same time,
the Australian Bureau of Statistics released a report indicating that newly arrived families
in Australia are 2/3 less likely to play sports in Australia. Same time, James’s son, Tom,
was doing a graduate diploma in the area of social entrepreneurship, developing a social
media platform for the purposes of building awareness of social issues. James got his
platform to deliver a multilingual website to develop awareness of newly arrived
communities in Australia, along with a small grant from the government to do a pilot report,
afterwards, developed into the concept of Sports Without Borders.
James’ parents came from Cyprus, born and raised in Australia. Migrant background.
Grew up in low/middle-class suburbs. James and brothers fell in love with sports and
joined local clubs that assisted them in integrating into the Australian society. Played
senior AFL football. James was a semi-professional player, while doing law school. Older
brother eventually became the CEO of the Australian Football League (AFL). What
prompted James to start Sports Without Borders is when he was growing up, there were a
lot of prejudice for newly arrived communities to play sports. And situation got worse
through time. A lot of these immigrants came from enormous hardships. James felt
fortunate in sports and thought it was time to give back. Tried to fix the wrong that was
there. At the same time, his son, Tom was doing a major social media in social venture
program. It all came together. James felt it was important to fix a problem that existed and
someone had to take leadership to try to solve the problem (perhaps by raising awareness
of the problem first and to get the buy-ins of people and the stakeholders to help fix the
problem together).
How Did You Build The Right Team?
James and his son, Tom, founded Sports Without Borders. Went to the Australian
Multicultural Foundation and became their partner and they recommended people to bring
to the team. Never more than 3 employees (many volunteers: students doing community
sports or doing sports entrepreneurs. Provide training to them. A lot of them go on to lead
senior positions in sport in Australia). Built a small cohesive team using the

recommendations of the people given by the Australian Multicultural Foundation, and has
been almost the same team for 8 years.
What Is Your Business Model?
Instead of trying to build a business model right away, James started by continually setting
assumptions, searching and validating their business model. Ended up with building and
aligning themselves with partnerships, with groups of people that are strong in their sector,
and built that up with government – local, state, federal, and migrant resource centers and
local sporting and elite sporting organizations and built partnerships along those lines,
because they didn’t have people to market themselves so they developed through social
media, awareness campaigns and their distribution channels to distribute their
product/service to people in Australia. In the end result, because their partners have
already strong distribution channels and they allow Sports Without Borders to partner with
them to leverage their databases and their knowledge to get them into the market very
quickly. Further leveraged social media platforms, such as multilingual websites, online
applications, Twitter and Facebook etc., to spread their message across Australia to
multicultural and other disadvantaged groups.
Leveraged all the government grants available in Australia, also aligned themselves
through their partners with large private philanthropists for funding. The partners helped
builtd up credibility. “Once you align with the right partners, you are given almost like an
implied credibility.” They never did things in large, they did small pilots all the time to build,
search, test, search, validate, search, pivot and once they knew it was going to work, they
then rolled it out in multiple projects across Victoria and New South Wales.
Challenges
Main challenge is the government tier in Australia is going into strict budget constraint, so
federal and state governments are clamping down on any money being paid to community
organizations. So impact on philanthropical organizations are to be expected. However,
James does see it as an opportunity to innovate, i.e. be smarter to work with large
corporations that have CSR programs. In short, the current main challenge is where to find
the funding. The way James came over the challenge was through innovation and
adaptation. Funding for social ventures is always an issue in Australia, knowing that, they
had to become the thought leader in this space. Example: Used to do a lot of scholarships
in the early days for kids to join clubs. However, governments didn’t like that because they
didn’t believe it to be sustainable. So, to innovate, they developed their social inclusion
through sport program and they started to build leadership pathway programs, and then

put the scholarships at the end of that program so they still incorporated what they started
with but they adapted and started to develop more programs to build capacity in those
sporting and multicultural organizations and did it with local government and migrant
resource centers and other community multicultural organizations and from there, they
started to develop their advocacy model, which was how to make a name for themselves
and the sector and they developed 3 years ago a national community sport conference,
covering multicultural problems, women, disadvantaged poor people, people with
disabilities, lesbians, gay, etc. It was a platform to develop a major advocacy and policy
instrument in the conference and they are the thought leader in this field at the moment.
To solve the problem of sustainability (of funding), James used a “whole of community”
approach to sport which has allowed them to become more sustainable, because there is
more stakeholders, the whole community is involved from local government communities,
state governments, sporting clubs, state sporting organizations, the Australian Sports
Commission, they are all involved. What it also requires is more resources and more
project management, so whilst they were able to get more funding to do this, it also made
them more like project managers which was not what they originally wanted to do.
What Are Your Plans For Expansion?
Expansion for James is not about huge growth or being a big player, it’s about developing
innovative programs that will lead the way and the narrative in Australia and elsewhere. So
what they are doing is trying to work out how to develop more innovative programs that will
not cost them a lot of money and they can sustain themselves to be able to do that, so
they are thought leaders and develop innovative pilot programs and they show people the
way.
Sports Without Borders has doubled in income and expenditure.
What Is Success to You?
Success to James is basically changing people’s ideas and getting them to see that there
is a different way of delivering or developing programs in the multicultural space. They
(Sports Without Borders) are a change agent. Success to them is if people adopt what
they have developed as pilots and they develop it into mainstream activities. Success to
them also mean increasing the number of young people that have access to sport
participation in Australia in the multicultural area. Third, success to them is aligning
themselves with other credible partners that have the same mindset and wish to work with
them. Finally, another factor of success to James is to have developed good people that

will one day not just work for them but work elsewhere and basically be disciples of what
they believe in.
How Do You Measure The ROI?
1. Number of children / young people that are playing sport
2. The success of their programs judged by the young people themselves, the
communities and the government
3. The number of grants they are able to get and to sustain and repeat them
4. Are they seen by their peers and the sector to be good citizens, do they deliver and are
they credible
How Can You Improve?
Always keep educating and building the knowledge of the people and volunteers that work
with Sports Without Borders. Build their capacity.
By developing newer programs all the time or providing incremental increases, innovation
in the existing programs. Pick the best programs and continuingly improve them and then
look at new programs that can improve or find a solution to an existing problem.
What Are The Major Risks For The Organization? At The Start, Currently And In The
Future.
At the start, it was “is this the right space to be in, is there a problem?” so the risk was do
you put all your efforts in and raise money for something you are not quite sure of. In the
early days, always the risk was searching and validating your hypothesis on what an
organization should do. Second risk in the beginning is funding and third, credibility. In the
second, third and fourth year, once they started to do the programs, the big risks were
resourcing, funding, the people and project management.
Current risks is you have to make sure to keep reinventing yourself, if not, you will die, and
success itself (can be a risk), and keeping your good staff. Final risk now is to stay
relevant to change with the government and people.
The risk foreseen for the future for Sports Without Borders is staying the current size and
not getting too big, and to stay as an innovative and nimble organization.

AISTS MSA 2014 Research Paper - LIU NANCY

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