Watching the thrilling run of the U.S. women’s national team to a fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup title, we can all recognize the powerful role that sports play in our society. Elite athletes competing on the global stage inspire the hopes and dreams of a nation and the world. But it’s time for philanthropists and leaders at foundations, corporations, and government agencies to think about sports in a completely different way.
Sports — particularly youth sports — have the potential to contribute so much more to our society than they are being asked or funded to do. In fact, youth sports and youth coaches are an untapped national resource with the capacity to drive outcomes that matter in a wide range of issues, whether health and youth development or community revitalization and social connection.
Yet youth sports are typically viewed as only fun and games. They should be considered a key component of any serious philanthropic strategy to help children and families in areas in the United States where the need is greatest.
Why Sports?
Sports have existed for millennia because they provide a platform for learning the rules of society, for developing critical life skills, and for advancing active, healthy lifestyles.
In addition to developing sports-specific skills, young participants also learn the importance of fair play, when to lead and when to follow, how to participate as part of a team, how to compete hard but within the rules. They learn the value of perseverance and grit, how to win, and how to lose with grace.
In short, well-designed youth sports programs provide a platform for learning crucial life skills that aid children’s development into healthy, productive citizens.
Intentionality Is Key
From a grant maker’s perspective, however, there’s an important distinction between the traditional youth sports that most of us are familiar with and the youth-development programs based on sports. What foundations and nonprofits need to focus on are well-designed programs with the clear intent of improving health, youth development, and social outcomes. These programs recognize that fewer than 1 percent of children playing sports will go on to get paid to play professionally. Sports-based programs seek to ensure a payoff for every child, not just the best athletes.
The best providers are going far beyond anecdotes to make that case. Up2Us Sports, Girls on the Run, and the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation are on a growing list of sports-based youth-development organizations delivering evidence-based outcomes for children nationwide. Evidence from these organizations shows that their approach to sports programs can result in improved health and improved confidence, empathy, and skills in conflict resolution.
Carrying Out Philanthropic Missions
The programs focus on the issues that grant makers care about, including community revitalization, getting young people ready for jobs, and making sure more Americans are leading healthy lifestyles.
Too often, however, children in underserved neighborhoods lack access to any type of sports program. Eighty percent of children in those communities lack access to youth sports opportunities. Furthermore, one in three Americans — more than 100 million people — don’t have a park or recreational space within a 10 minute (half-mile) walk of home.
This can become a long-lasting impediment. When children don’t have access to sports and safe places to play, they miss out on a key element of nontraditional learning.
Supporting Evidence
A decade ago, the landscape was different. There was a generally held belief that sports participation was good for children, but little hard evidence to make the funding case for sports as a vehicle for youth development and social change. We designed our Soccer for Success program to engage children 6 to 14 in underserved communities who traditionally lack access to structured sports programs. We wanted the program to do more than teach the fundamentals of the game. We wanted to use soccer to provide children and their families with the tools and knowledge they need to make healthy lifestyle decisions. Internal data collected from 2009 to 2011 showed that Soccer for Success delivered positive health outcomes.
Thosepreliminary data were enough to encourage the federal Social Innovation Fund to take a chance on us. Through our work with SIF, we were able to show through an independent, third-party evaluation that Soccer for Success delivered statistically significant health improvements among 6-14-year-olds. Additionally, more than 80 percent of participants learned how to work better on a team, avoid antisocial behavior, and feel optimistic about the future.
Subsequent investments by the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention enabled us to show that Soccer for Success delivered positive youth-development outcomes as well. In fact, the Justice Department noted that the program was unique in its ability to engage children who would not typically enter or stay with a traditional mentoring program.
The Power of Coaching
Part of the power of using sports to promote youth development is that its premise is simple: Youth coaches are among the most influential people in a child’s life.
Children go to school because they must. They come running and laughing to their coaches because they want to learn from them — and they have fun doing it. There is mounting evidence that when coaches are properly trained — and provided with curricula focused on helping young people gain skills both on and off the playing field —sports programs can do much to change the lives of young people, especially those living in underresourced communities.
Training coach-mentors is key to Soccer for Success. Coaches receive training in social and emotional learning, mentorship, and how to carry out a curriculum designed to change lives. That curriculum incorporates nutrition education and life-skills development as part of the fun and games. Program operators also receive training on how to engage families in ways that help strengthen communities.
Impact Extends Beyond Children
We naturally think of adults teaching children. However, as we’ve seen with seat belts, smoking, and recycling, informed children can influence parental attitudes and behaviors. Children in our Soccer for Success program excitedly share with their families what they’ve learned about the importance of eating more healthfully and leading active, healthy lifestyles.
Parental responses have ranged from mom and dad walking around the field for exercise while their children practice, to parents in a Los Angeles community with limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables pushing for a farmers’ market to come to their practice site. In fact, 76 percent of parents and guardians said their families exercised more, and 72 percent said their families ate more healthfully after participation in the program.
Soccer for Success provides a trusted connection to families, which program operators leverage to help those families identify and access public and community resources beyond the soccer program. Arranging for free health screenings and other services at Soccer for Success end-of-season festivals is now a best practice shared among program operators across the country.
Brotherhood Crusade, one of our most innovative partners, went a step further. It operates in a part of Los Angeles where many families are not connected to primary-care services. Brotherhood Crusade gave parents the opportunity to enroll in health care services as part of the process of signing their children up for Soccer for Success.The result was a significant increase in the number of families connected to health care services.
What’s more, the availability of sports programs allowed neighbors to meet neighbors. People of different cultures and backgrounds engaged one another in ways that strengthened community bonds.
Let’s Build a National Movement
Today nearly 100,000 children and more than 4,000 coach-mentors annually are benefiting from the Soccer for Success program — and this number continues to grow each school year. Our goal is to engage 1 million children in our program, ensure that their development and health improves, and build 1,000 more safe places to play by 2026.
Recognizing the need to collectively reimagine the role and benefits of youth sports in society, we launched a campaign called It’s Everyone’s Game. The goal is to stimulate a national movement around a simple idea: Every child should have the opportunity to play the beautiful game and to reap the lifelong benefits derived from the support of a caring coach-mentor.
In the past decade, more grant makers have recognized the potential of sports-based youth development. They include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Oak Foundation, the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, the Target Foundation, and the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, among others.
Still, a broader and deeper embrace of this practice is required. The opportunities are limited only by the funding. Foundations and philanthropists are well-positioned to advance this important work.
How can foundations and philanthropists help? They can support:
- Efforts to advance youth sports programs and coach training that focus on delivering strong health and life-skills results.
- Programs to train youth-serving organizations about proven techniques for taking sports beyond play and focused on youth development.
- Creation of safe places to play in neighborhoods that lack parks and playgrounds.
- Additional evaluation to strengthen the evidence of what works best to develop young people —and what doesn’t — in sports programs.
Just as important as funding is for foundations to advocate for the idea that our families and children will fare better if sports are part of every young person’s development. By reimagining and investing in sports programs that focus on youth development, grant makers have an innovative way to engage the children, families, and communities they seek to serve. Through the lens of sports, we can advance important work to promote health, youth development, family engagement, social connection, community revitalization, and equity. And we can do it in ways that fit naturally into the fabric of community life.
Ed Foster-Simeon is President & CEO of the U.S. Soccer Foundation. For more information, visit ussoccerfoundation.org.
