Projects

The raison d'être of the Foundation

Laureus Sport for Good Foundation supports community initiatives that help combat social ills through sports, assisting individuals to overcome their difficulties through the values inherent in sporting participation. Most projects have complementary components such as educational and life skills workshops.

The Foundation works 365 days a year, promoting and supporting projects on every continent to address social problems such as community disintegration, substance abuse, lack of educational and employment opportunities, abusive relationships, racial and religious intolerance, gang violence, depression and HIV/AIDS.

Our ultimate goal is to help less fortunate individuals choose a positive and productive path of life.

Below outlines the key elements to our criteria for funding along with an overview of our process for application.

To be eligible to apply for a partnership with Laureus the organisation must be a community-based organisation or a non governmental organisation that is legally registered in country. Each application must demonstrate how their project will add value to the Foundation's ultimate social mission of using sport as an effective tool for positive change. Any project must therefore fit within one or more of the key social outcomes that address issues in particular involving, but not limited to, young people affected by:

• Social Exclusion
• Gun & Gang Violence
• Discrimination in all its guises
• Community integration and cohesion
• Peace and reconciliation
• Education
• Health

In addition to this, all applications must be seen to demonstrate the following cross-cutting issues within their design, management and implementation of their project:

• Participation
• Organisational Capacity Building
• Collaboration & partnership

It is important to note that the Foundation does not fund certain types of organisations or activities, these include:

• Statutory bodies or profit-making organisations
• Organisations working purely with elite-sport or promoting specific sporting talent
• Individual athletes or professional sports teams
• Individuals for their sole benefit
• Major infrastructural projects or large capital grants
• Disaster or emergency humanitarian relief projects
• Ad hoc, one off isolated events

In order to make the assessment of a project application as objective and robust as possible, the Foundation has also developed a more detailed list of criteria for selecting and assessing projects. Below outlines the key areas of assessment in no order of importance:

1. Impact
2. Local context/need
3. Project planning, delivery and design
4. Participation/ownership
5. Innovation and replication
6. Partnerships
7. Measuring success
8. Sustainability
9. Organisational capacity
10. Financial risk assessment
11. Potential to contribute to Laureus and the Network

This process can be used to rationalise and justify recommendations on different projects to trustees as well as building a more objective process for assessment. Some criteria carries more weighting than others - for instance to mitigate financial risk.

We don't expect projects to fulfil all the criteria but we use this as an assessment to identify the strengths and the potential risks inherent in the project. If the project is accepted, we then use this to ensure we can manage those risks in partnership with the project.

It will often be necessary to discuss some of the high risks and concerns in more detail with the project via an informal interview along with any additional information that we felt was required.

Please note that at present, we are currently not accepting unsolicited applications - however, if you would like to fill in an expression of interest form we will keep this on file and get in touch as and when funds become available.

Foundation Expression of Interest Form