Nearly 200 join first virtual Beyond Sport Community Chat
April 10, 2020
"Now, more than ever, we don't want you to feel alone." #SameTeam
Yesterday, we were proud to hold our first-ever Beyond Sport Community Chat to provide an open forum for our global network to connect, and share ideas, questions and challenges during these unsettling times.
Coming from India, the DRC, Mexico, UK, Canada, the Gambia, Spain, Bangladesh, the US, Vietnam, Greece, South Africa, Czech Republic, Lesotho, Japan, Tanzania and so many more countries, it was beautiful to see and chat with nearly 200 members of the Beyond Sport family, showing that our connections are stronger than distance.
Hosted and facilitated by Radha Balani, Director of Design and Facilitation for our advisory arm, thinkBeyond, the chat opened with expert insights from Beyond Sport partners.
Adam Fraser, Chief Executive of Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, provided a funder perspective noting the importance of allowing people to use funding in different ways, repurposing grants and to find out the response. He also gave advice and answered questions for sport nonprofits who are seeing their programs severely impacted by the pandemic.
Angela Woods, Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship for ESPN gave a brand perspective noting that as a media broadcast company that delivers live sports, they are definitely living in a different time right now. She expanded on some of the ways ESPN is activating and highlighted some league initiatives that she particuarly felt are providing great platforms to engage.
Nick Gates, Founder and Global Strategist of Coaches Across Continents, provided a development perspective, sharing that biggest challenge they faced was getting information to communities that don’t have access to internet, and how to continue to use play as a way to educate children who aren’t at school anymore.
Following questions, attendees were whisked off to breakout rooms for smaller group conversations where they could speak more specifically on their biggest challenges and get advice from each other.
Discussions were broad, ranging from finding ways to reach their program participants where access to internet and digital resources is not available (daily WhatsApp missives from The Girl Foundation in Tanzania); to taking comfort in knowing that others were facing similar problems and having another voice to listen to; to reminding people to plan ahead on what to do with people coming back out of isolation (City Football Group); to sharing resources that they had developed or seen that could be useful to others (Sports Philanthropy Network).
Nick Keller, Beyond Sport Founder and President, closed out the discussions with thoughts on barriers to overcome and looking forward to the future with hope.
Beyond Sport is hugely grateful for the fantastic turnout, and has a broad range of activations planned for our network. Please make sure to check our website, social channels and sign up for our weekly newsletter to keep up to date. Please save the date for our next community chat on May 14 which will focus on challenges and solutions for teams and leagues! And, if you missed today's gathering you can listen to the full recording here (with the exception of breakout sessions).
Many organizations are facing huge challenges and uncertainties, as well as the pressure to immediately cultivate a new way of working and collaborating internally and with other organizations. If you're interested in learning more about how thinkBeyond's Design and Facilitation services can help you adapt, overcome and grow, please reach out to [email protected].