Choose a current policy area from the following within the context of amateur sport in the community: fundraising; inactivity of youth; parental invo

Several policy areas are prominent for managers of amateur sport organizations in the community. It is important that policies be defined for each of the areas described in this section because the issues are critical to the effective delivery of amateur sport, especially as related to children and children’s programming. Effective policy enables effective decision-making.

Fundraising

Policy enabling decision-making for fundraising is a prominent issue for amateur sport organizations in the community. Community-based amateur sport organizations rely on raising capital for both programming and infrastructure. Public sport organizations compete with every other level of social programming for funding and government grants often fall short of their needs. As important as fundraising is to public sport organizations, policy that enables effective financial management is even more important with nonprofit sport organizations. Managers in the nonprofit sector are continually concerned with maintaining strict measures for raising money, along with ensuring that budgets are balanced and spending is effective and shared among as many programs as possible. For instance, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America rely heavily on donations from both the private and the public sectors. While it takes money to run a Boys & Girls Club (about $500 per youth per year), the alternative costs of keeping a young adult in jail for a year are many times higher.

The fundraising policy areas receiving most of the attention are the following:

Identifying Fundraising Sources. Most organizations set specific policies that identify sources of funds worth pursuing. Most funding sources include private donations, government grants, and corporate sponsorships. Specific policies might list donors in order of priority based on which are most likely to enter a partnership and in specific categories of new contacts to pursue. In addition, such policies will certainly outline categories of unacceptable sources of funding. For instance, no Boys & Girls Club would solicit funds from a tobacco company. On the contrary, the club will work hard to disassociate unhealthy practices such as smoking from the club’s programming for children and teenagers. The policy might also define special event types of fundraising (charity dinners, silent auctions, golf tournaments, etc.) and set some parameters on exactly what events will be hosted and what goals will define success.

Soliciting Donations and Sponsorships. Other policies will define exactly how donations and sponsorships are solicited and by whom. Will potential donors be called, contacted by mail, e-mail, phone, and personal communications? Will the club website be used to initiate fundraising? How will money be received, and how will records be kept? It is important now more than ever that donating should be easy for the individual or corporation. Developing effective policies will answer questions such as these.

Servicing and Maintaining Donor Relationships. Ensuring donors and sponsors are “serviced” is very important as well. This means giving back to the donor or sponsor. Once programming has support, every effort must be made to inform, involve, and thank the sponsors for their involvement. Courtesy and reciprocity are critical to building relationships and are the best ways to maintain donor or sponsor involvement from year to year. Newsletters, invitations to see programs in action, thank you letters from participants, and summarized information outlining the positive outcomes resulting from the donation are all effective means of servicing. The Boys & Girls Clubs of America use an extremely prominent National Board of Governors and Officers as well as alumni in their fundraising efforts and most certainly want to maintain these high-level benefactors who include high-profile individuals such as Condoleezza Rice, Ken Griffey Jr., Jennifer Lopez, and Denzel Washington (Boys & Girls Club of America, 2022c).

Inactivity of Youth

Currently, the inactivity of youth generally and the declining numbers of participants in amateur sport have been targeted as trends that community-level sport programs can help reverse. Policy is often set to deal with recurring issues and to enable decision-making to effect change regarding such issues. All too often, children and youth are less physically active than is optimal for health and wellness because of the prevalence of passive activities such as videos and computer games. Research shows that only 24% of children 6–17 years of age participate in 60 minutes of physical activity per day pre-COVID (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Post-COVID, however, children ages 5–13 became more likely to decrease their physical activity and increase their sedentary behavior as the pandemic continued. These changes could create permanently entrenched behaviors, leading to a myriad of health issues (Dunton et al., 2020).

Some community-based amateur sport organizations are setting policy to ensure that programming exists for all youth age groups. The goal is to provide a variety of fun-filled, supportive sport and physical activity experiences for youth. Such policy promotes skill development, healthy lifestyles, and improved self-esteem. For example, some municipalities have enacted policies to ensure opportunities exist for age-group participants in sports that require the use of already overbooked areas and fields. At times, the policies specify participation for particular groups, such as a girls- or boys-only activity. In many community amateur athletic organizations, such as the City of Columbus, Ohio Recreation and Parks Department, T-ball programs and Little League Baseball are offered for girls as well as boys. Beyond gender, issues of race, ethnicity, disability, and urban versus rural further complicate the issue of youth inactivity. The reasons impacting this issue are complicated and involve a mix of societal issues such as culture, income, family responsibilities, and the impact of technology.

Parental Involvement

Parental involvement has been a major topic of youth sport over the past several years (Positive Coaching Alliance, 2022). Stories of parents being “muzzled” or banned from events are too frequently presented in the media. Adult misbehaviors have become more commonplace: splashing hot coffee in the face of an official; verbally abusing officials, coaches, and kids; and fighting, threatening, and other forms of confrontations. According to Dan Bylsma, former National Hockey League (NHL) player and former coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, two questions must be answered: Why have parents become so invested in the progress of their children in sports to the exclusion of other arguably more important endeavors, such as academics? And why does this parental involvement contradict what is best for the child? Amateur sport in the community is about fun, teamwork, dedication, and respect for authority. Excessive parental involvement in amateur sport, especially involvement that overshadows other important aspects of growing up, such as doing homework and chores and gaining experience in a number of different activities, teaches children the wrong lessons. Consider the values a child learns when thousands of dollars are spent on hockey travel by a parent who would not consider spending tens of dollars on a math tutor (Atkinson, 2014).

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