With support from Volunteering Wales Strategic Grants, Sported’s innovative project focused on building the capacity and impact of volunteering at all levels of community sport.
OVERVIEW
In 2025, Sported successfully delivered the Wales Strategic Volunteering Project (WSVP),
Funded by Welsh Government, and administered by Wales Council for Voluntary Action (WCVA)
through the Volunteering Wales Strategic Grants. It was aimed at building the capacity and impact of board, trustee, and management level volunteering in community sport across Wales, involving more people from more diverse backgrounds.
It was delivered in collaboration with several organisations: WCVA, Welsh Sport Association (WSA), Sport Wales, Boys and Girls Clubs of Wales and Streetgames.
LEADING WITH VISION AND EVIDENCE
Sported guided the project through two phases:
- Looking at the volunteering landscape in community sport
- Developing and providing resources to support and guide the sector
Sported spoke to many groups, including community groups, young people, voluntary sector leaders, and strategic partners. Solutions were informed, inclusive, and implementable at local, regional and national levels.
FOSTERING COLLABORATION
Sported wanted to create connections, to share knowledge and capacity building by:
- enabling co-production and collaboration from the wider sport and voluntary sector, and
- focusing dialogue and helping to simplify and clarify a complex challenge facing the sector.
This strategy ensured that the often complex elements of volunteering in leadership positions were considered across the breadth of the sector, strengthening the overall fabric of the community sports sector.
EMPOWERING UNDERREPRESENTED VOICES
An important focus was to engage young people and individuals from marginalised communities and support the diversity and inclusivity of volunteering in leadership roles. Sported spoke to many experts in national youth and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) focused organisations to gather their views.
‘Being part of this project has been integral in shaping future volunteering opportunities for young people in sport,’ said Rhiannon Sheed De Jesus, Youth Voice & Sport System Manager at StreetGames Wales.
‘StreetGames were keen to ensure that the voices of young people from underserved communities were involved, to help shape the solutions through the Sported project.’
THE FUTURE
It wasn’t all about theory and gathering evidence though – the project is now moving to an implementation phase to put these recommendations into practice, led by Sported’s Partnership Manager, Polly Crook. It will involve connecting and collaboration between sector partners, bringing solutions to life to foster generous leadership in the sector and the sharing of knowledge and resources for the collective good.
The hope is that this continuing work will help embed inclusive practices, unlock untapped potential in underrepresented communities, and strengthen the governance and sustainability of local organisations.
ABOUT VOLUNTEERING WALES STRATEGIC GRANTS
The Volunteering Wales Strategic Grant scheme is funded by Welsh Government and managed by WCVA. Grant recipients have shown how strategic thinking about volunteering can be massively beneficial in achieving your organisation’s aims. See what you can learn from the projects by having a look at some of the resources they have produced:
- Foothold Toolkit Employee Volunteer Scheme
- Youth Volunteering: A Toolkit for the Third-Sector
- Volunteens: Be Heard. Be Helpful – Teacher Resource
- Welsh Language Volunteering Framework
- Integrated Volunteer Services Project Report
- Snowdonia Society – Caru Eryri Executive Summary
- Innovate Trust’s Insight Investigators Evaluation
- Innovate Trust – Volunteering Hub Project Retrospective