Changing Lives Through Sport And Physical Activity Fund Report
The Changing Lives Fund demonstrated that sport and physical activity can play a powerful role in reaching inactive people and helping them feel healthier, improve their mental wellbeing, feel included, develop skills and create community cohesion.
SUMMARY
What is the Changing Lives Fund?
This report sets out findings from an evaluation of the Changing Lives through Sport and Physical Activity Fund.
This was a £1 million Fund which sat within the wider Changing Lives through Sport and Physical Activity Programme and involved national partners Scottish Government, sportscotland, The Robertson Trust and Spirit of 2012. Spirit of 2012 managed the Fund on behalf of partners.
The Changing Lives Fund aimed to change lives through sport and physical activity. It aimed to address wider individual and community needs through sport and physical activity, and to support people to become and stay active. The focus was on individual or societal change, not on increasing participation or providing pathways to a particular sport.
The Fund supported 17 partnerships, providing short-term additional resource to enable sport and community organisations to intentionally change lives through sport and physical activity. It aimed to bring about change in relation to health and wellbeing, inclusion, skills and community connections.
Funded partnerships involved collaboration between sport and physical activity focused organisations, and a wide mix of other organisations including community, equality, youth work and health organisations.
The Fund was intended to run for two years, from early 2019 to late 2020. For many projects, the first six months focused on project set up, with delivery commencing mid-2019. In early 2020, the context changed substantially with the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Projects were paused for some time, moved to crisis support to assist communities and had to significantly change the way they were delivered. The Fund was therefore extended through to autumn 2021.
This evaluation covers the Fund from early 2019 to late 2021, exploring project delivery, participants, outcomes and learning. It is supported by a detailed interim report which covers Year One of the Fund (pre-pandemic) which was produced in spring 2020.
The button above will take you to the Changing Lives Actify module, where you can download the full evaluation.