It seems like only yesterday that we were at the beginning of 2025 laying out our plans for Spirit’s final year, but unbelievably, we are now at less than 100 working days to go until Spirit of 2012’s planned closure at the end of this year. In some ways it doesn’t even seem like that long ago that we were together in 2012 for the beginning of our story!

The National Lottery Community Fund (BIG, as was) established Spirit as a spend-out trust in 2013 to continue the sense of community pride and connectedness they saw in the events of 2012. The London 2012 Games were exceptional, but they represented a specific point in time which we knew was fleeting, so they asked us to both fund activity to leave a lasting impact from future events and commemorations and build a knowledge bank showing how events – large and small – can harness that spirit and deliver tangible social outcomes. The original plan was always to close in 2023, but COVID and the numbers of extraordinary events hosted by the UK in 2022 and 2023 meant that we extended that timeframe by a couple of years. In 2020 we set out intention publicly to close, and we will be turning off the lights for Spirit of 2012 at the end of January 2026. In reality, this means we are well into our final phase, we have stopped doing new things, and operationally the charity will wind down in earnest after our final conference on 22 October.

Since I became Chief Executive in 2019, I have often described our time-limited nature as our super-power. We had a clear mission and purpose, a committed staff and Board, and secure funding. I know that is an enormously privileged position to be in.

Our critical focus over the early part of this year has been making sure that our final multi year grants ended well, and that their learning contributed to our growing knowledge bank. In addition we have been working hard with our legacy learning partners Loughborough University, PBE and Belong Network to develop products that will be used in their networks and beyond long after we close. In addition Neighbourly Lab, DHA Communications, Team GB & ParalympicsGB and UWS, Public First have developed new reports, events and toolkits which address some of the final questions and challenges we still want to interrogate.

We have also been focussed on ensuring that the information we leave behind is not only valuable and practical, but complete and easily accessible. More than 200 resources have already been compiled into our new Knowledge Bank, and by the end of the year, it will stand as a complete collection of Spirit’s published learning and research which will be accessible after we close.  Our new Starter Packs give curated sets of our best resources on specific themes.

There is still much future work we are contributing our thinking to. We were delighted to see the inclusion of a Capital of Sport-like designation in the NHS 10-year plan, and that the DCMS Select Committee has opened an inquiry into major events, and we will contribute our learning to both. Not to mention an exciting Commonwealth Games in Glasgow next year and pipeline of sporting events, including the 2028 Men’s Euros. We would love to see a further City of Culture competition open whilst we are still here, but if any cities are already thinking about bidding do let us know – we’d be delighted to share what we have learnt as a funder of the last three.

Over the last two years we have focussed on convening organisations and individuals across the events landscape – sport, arts and volunteering, public and private, local and national to spark important conversations about how we ensure that events really deliver on their potential to deliver long term social impact. This cross-sector convening is one of the few areas that we are unsure who will lead this once we close, but we are working with partners to look at how we might oil the wheels of this at least for the next year.

So, what’s immediately next for us? We are looking forward to seeing many of our partners, stakeholders and friends at our final conference Crafting Events That Matter, on 22 October in London where we will present one final publication and discuss what organisations can do to pick up the baton after we close. Expect us to celebrate our history and how far we come but expect to be inspired by voices from across the world of events and consider critically how the events of the future can deliver a lasting social impact. We hope this event will practice as we have preached and leave – as any event should – a lasting legacy that will continue to have impact for years to come. Before we close, we will also publish a set of Areas of Research Interest – things we think still need a good coat of looking at – that we hope will be helpful to others working in this field to keep moving the conversations on.

You can still sign up to join us on October 22nd by using this link. Amazing things have happened along the course of this near our 12-year marathon but we are now at the most critical point – the sprint to the finish.

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