The Football Association
The Football Association (FA) is the governing body of association football in England, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the amateur and professional game in its territory.
The FA works in partnership with the County FA network and a range of other partners to ensure opportunities to play exist at a local level across all three pathways. There has been significant growth over the last few years that has seen the number of disability specific teams increase.
The FA has recently announced further investment into disability football via The FA disability workforce fund (DWF) which has seen the creation of a network of 43 disability-specific football development officers, each with a remit of retaining and growing participation levels.
The FA (DWF) has been using Upshot since 2016 and currently tracks the number of recreational turn-up-and-play centres and regular participation figures broken down by disability. Upshot’s multi-platform structure allows each delivery organisation to have their own account, which are linked to the FA’s overarching funder account. This architecture allows the FA to link up with all 43 development officers and pull off reports in real time. So far more than 8,000 participants have been recorded through Upshot.
RFL
The Rugby Football League (RFL) is the NGB for rugby league in the UK. It is responsible for developing rugby league at all levels – the organisation administers the national team, the big cup and league competitions as well supporting the grassroots game.
The RFL has been using Upshot since 2015 to monitor a number of programmes.
These include:
Sky Try, providing the highest number of Rugby League opportunities in primary and secondary schools to date;
Back Onside, engaging men in health-related activity; and
Offload, which tackles mental health issues.
Upshot’s multi-platform structure allows the RFL to draw statistical data at the click of a button from all their delivery partners in real time, track progress against set targets and quickly compile reports across a vast range of metrics and demographics.
basketballscotland
basketballscotland is the governing body for basketball in Scotland. Its role is to provide leadership and governance across the sport, to support and challenge clubs, athletes and partners, to deliver programmes and education and to secure investment into the sport.
basketballscotland has been using Upshot since 2017, across its Schools of Basketball programme, which is funded by CashBack for Communities. CashBack for Communities is a Scottish government initiative, which, since 2008, has recovered £92 million under the Proceeds of Crime Act to fund nearly 2 million activities and opportunities for young people.
The Schools of Basketball programme is delivered through a combination of seven basketball clubs and local authorities, across 17 schools. Weekly sessions are delivered at each school to the S1-S3 year groups. Every session contains a practical and educational element. The sessions aim to have a holistic impact on the participants, improving things like confidence, educational attainment, school behaviour and physical basketball skills of every participant.
basketballscotland uses Upshot to collate the participation and outcomes data for the programme through effective use of the registers and survey tool. The governing body also sends Upshot surveys to capture the outcomes data for their research partner Blake Stevenson.
Welsh Football Trust (FAW Trust)
The FAW Trust is a registered charity, founded in 1996, and is responsible for the development of football in Wales, from grassroots to national level.
For more than 20 years, it's been their job to work with the Football Association of Wales to protect, promote and develop the game of football to achieve the joint vision of “Football for everyone, everywhere in Wales”.
Since March 2018, the FAW Trust has utilised Upshot to effectively track the impact of their Cics Cymru programme. The Cics Cymru project is designed to inspire new children to fall in love with football, across Wales.
In an exciting partnership with Welsh Government and the Premier League, FAW funded seven clubs in North, South and Central Wales to run informal sessions aimed at growing the girls' game and inspiring children in areas of social deprivation.
The project aims to bring 1,800 new 12 to 16-year-olds into football and at least 450 of those will be female.
Success against these aims is being monitored and reported on through Upshot, which allows each club to log when they have created a new Cics Hub, track registers and establish whether targeted demographics are being reached.
One of the most beneficial elements, for reporting on the programme’s reach to children in areas of social deprivation, is the Upshot mapping tool. This allows the FAW Trust to view a map of participation across Wales and visually analyse whether participants are coming from areas of high deprivation, based on Welsh Government data.
Sport England
Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport that grows community sport in partnership with national governing bodies and other funded partners.
Over the years, Sport England and its funded partners have made use of Upshot to deliver and monitor sports programmes with outcomes such as reducing inactivity, increasing participation and improving mental health. These have included major programmes in the education sector, delivered through AoC Sport and British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS).
In a recent conversation, Duncan Skelton, Senior Manager Children and Young People at Sport England had this to say about Upshot, “We are trying to be much more data driven and technology, such as Upshot, has helped us ensure that we’ve got more data now on the participants and the people that we want to engage… For instance, with the help of postcode mapping, you can show that you are reaching the right audience and that money is being well spent on the programme. Upshot is extremely useful. Asking the amount of questions and doing the number of surveys we are doing now, without a platform like Upshot, would be very time-consuming.”
Do you want to find out more about how these NGBs and sports organisations are using Upshot to monitor their programmes? Are you interested to see how we might be able to support your projects?
Get in touch! Call us on 020 7842 8899 or email info@upshot.org.uk
