Securing Resources
A Team for Every Child believes that youth sports should be a public good and accessible to all. We believe that all children deserve an opportunity to play, to be physically active, to have caring adult mentors, and to be a part of a team. These experiences can be transformative and lifesaving to both the children and the mentors that engage in them. The accessibility of sports and physical activity for all cannot happen without recourses to make them possible. For sustainable youth sports programs to run they require:
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Facilities, including fields, gymnasia, swimming pools and their continued maintenance, preferably in the neighborhoods of the children they are serving.
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Equipment such as balls, bats, gloves, racquets, backstops, basketball hoops, uniforms, etc..
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Transportation. This can be a significant obstacle to participation for children whose parents work full-time, do not own a vehicle, or cannot afford the costs.
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Security guards to monitor the safety of children and facilities.
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First aid, which requires training, equipment, and a system for injuries that occur on-site.
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Insurance.
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Coach education.
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Coaches, who may be volunteers or a mix of paid persons and volunteers.
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Personnel costs for the administration of programs. Record-keeping and continuous evaluation is essential to sustainability and effectiveness of services delivered.
Funding for recreation within public schools and at the community level has been on a steady decline since 2008. Thus, fees assessed to players is the primary source of revenue for most youth sports programs, which creates a problem in low income areas. In many poor, urban and rural areas, the “pay to play” model is inaccessible. The most common solution is to provide "scholarships" for children who cannot afford the cost of participation. Rarely, though, are there enough scholarships to go around and generally scholarships go to the most “deserving” (most athletically talented)
children. As a result, inspired leaders in the community
run their own programs with limited organizational capacity and funding, scrambling to raise money just to survive from season to season. This is extremely time-consuming and is often handled by great coach-mentors whose time is better spent with the children.
As a solution to these problems, A Team for Every Child helps build collaborative associations that can take-over many of the administrative duties and oversee the securing of resources for individual member organizations. The collaborative association supports the sharing of resources such as facilities, equipment, and other supplies needed to run each of the individual programs in a community. Furthermore, the association takes over the duties of fundraising in order to secure the long-term capital needed to keep these programs running. Yet this can be a difficult task. A Team for Every Child provides expertise in this area and assists with lobbying for public funding and seeking grants from community foundations, as well as donations from individuals. Through A Team for Every Child, sports and recreation programs in poor and underserved communities can have a chance to flourish, sustain, and create opportunity for children in every community, regardless of income.
So where do you come in? We need your help to help transform the culture of youth sports, build associations in urban communities and secure resources that allow us to sustain opportunities for children across the country. Click below to learn how you can get involved with this important initiative!