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Case 5: SCULT
Inactivity levels are growing and the number of sport volunteers is diminishing in Europe. Passive models and campaigns promoting physical activity and sports for all have their limits. Therefore, Europe needs and deserves innovative and radical, but simple, more authentic and engaging, scalable models to solve this growingly important complex challenge. World Sport Volunteers Movement SCULT has a creative solution. Sport is the most attractive field for volunteering, in which over 30 million adults plus young volunteers in the EU take part either occasionally or regularly. For example, the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic games had about 70,000 sport volunteers nicknamed as Game Makers or Runners. However, the area of sport volunteering is relatively chaotic with many challenges – one of them being the fluctuating quality of voluntary work and information asymmetry between the sport event organizers/sport clubs and potential volunteers. These challenges are common across cities and countries and in the case of both local and big international sport events. As the sport industry relies heavily on volunteers (in Finland Mari Kooskora, Estonian Business School Katri-Liis Reimann, Tallinn University
SCULT
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Background
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE CASE STUDY 199 out of 200 people related to sport clubs and events are volunteers) and their number differs from country to country at times, their activation would ultimately lead to more active and healthier societies in Europe and globally. The SCULT team is solving these social challenges by using best experiences from the start-up as well as the technology world.
Vision and Mission
The vision of SCULT is to build lifelong physically active and community-oriented lifestyles and alleviate the social and economic burden of physical inactivity. Its mission is to facilitate the matchmaking and communication between volunteers and sport event organizers through business model innovation in the field of sport volunteering. The central element of the organization is an international sport volunteers movement it develops and related services like the matching solution for sport event organizers and volunteers.
SCULT is a Social Enterprise (legally Foundation) that coordinates the activities of International Sport Volunteers Movement and connects bright-eyed volunteers at all ages, sport event organizers and sport clubs, locally and internationally. SCULT is a network-based organization uniting individuals and organizations passionate about healthy lifestyle, sport and/or working in the physical activity sector, it is connecting bright-eyed volunteers at all ages, sport event organizers and sport clubs locally and internationally.
On the one hand, SCULT is a social movement that promotes voluntary activity, on the other hand, technological solutions and services are being developed that will help sports volunteers to find volunteers for sporting events and events, both locally and internationally. The model capitalizes upon transparent and active volunteer communities, and uses smart solutions to facilitate the matchmaking and communication between volunteers and sport event organizers. The focus of SCULT is to scale the model internationally.
SCULT Academy is dedicated to today’s and tomorrow’s sport volunteers and their managers. The sport and physical activity sector relies heavily on volunteers. Without them, most activity simply would not happen.
As a social enterprise SCULT:
1. resolves social/societal challenge, namely solving the quality problems, creating opportunities, and developing leaders and tools for the sports volunteering.
2. has so-called ‘multiple revenue streams’ or multiple cash flows and a direct customer does not pay the bill. The revenue sources are (a) all kinds of funds; (b) corporate partners interested in expanding to a region/country); (c) services for organizing sports events 3. uses business principles to solve a societal challenge, including a scalable service and business model.
Goals Activities
The goal of the SCULT Foundation is to promote One of the main activities is Internationalization of the sports, exercise and health, to promote the Sport Volunteers Movement SCULT. It develops international movement of sports volunteers, to services like the matching solution for sport event participate in the work of sports and health clubs, to organisers and volunteers. In order to do so, it protect and license the trademark SCULT through the develops technologies, carries out research and management and effective use of funds. SCULT relies development activities and other necessary activities. heavily on advanced technological knowledge and SCULT co-operates in its fields of activity and innovation drawn from the team’s previous exchanges information with other non-profit experiences at Skype, Sportlyzer, Let’s Do It World associations, foundations and associations, Clean-up Foundation, SmartCap Venture Capital, educational institutions as well as other legal entities. Junior Chamber International, etc. It organizes networking conferences to motivate, activate and educate stakeholders from all over the The word SCULT is associated with, and its DNA is world. SCULT Academy is dedicated to today’s and drawn from, three words: sport, culture and cult. tomorrow’s sport volunteers and their managers. SCULT alleviates the social and economic burden of physical inactivity through business model innovation in the field of sport volunteering. The ambition of SCULT is to create a successful 21st century sport lifestyle social enterprise that delivers socio-economic effects to the cities, countries and regions involved. Through increased sport volunteering and grassroots sport SCULT aims to improve social inclusion through sport activities, supports gender equality in sport, and highlights the importance of health-enhancing physical activity.
Achieving its Goals
To achieve its goals, SCULT:
initiates and carries out projects, programs, campaigns and activities;
acts as a competence center;
develops technologies, carries out research and development activities and other necessary activities;
co-operates in its fields of activity and exchange information with other non-profit associations, foundations and associations, educational institutions as well as other legal entities;
to achieve its objectives and earn financial resources participates in the activities of different legal entities;
receives and uses property, grants and donations from individuals and legal entities;
issues scholarships, prizes, awards and grants;
cooperates internationally;
carries out other activities consistent with the purpose.
Resources and projects
SCULT has so-called ‘multiple revenue streams’ or The purpose of the Interreg Central Baltic YOUTH multiple cash flows and a direct customer does not SPORT VOL Project is to provide ‘Better Access to pay the bill. The revenue sources are funds from grant Labor Market for Young Unemployed Through programs and corporate partners. SCULT is an Cross-Border Sport Volunteers Model in Estonia and organization in the start-up phase, it still constantly Finland’. The project aims to increase the social develops its organization and services. In 2016, the inclusion of young unemployed and improve their focus was on developing and launching the access to the labor market through development and organizational activities, and developing partnerships. piloting the cross-border sport volunteers model in In 2017, mainly team development took place, and Estonia and Finland. Through voluntary work, the also volunteering at various sports events, and young unemployed will get work experience in assisting volunteers was done. In 2018 and 2019 different organizations with people from different besides core activities different new partnerships nationalities and age groups. This will give young were developed: SCULT participated in calls for unemployed an important advantage while entering proposals and represented the field of volunteers at the labor market. This project is supported by various international conferences and information €209,995 from the European Regional Development days. Fund.
SCULT is one of the few organizations awarded the Erasmus+ Sport Grant for the years 2017–2018. The project is focused on Internationalization of the Sport Volunteers Movement SCULT. During the project, SCULT intends to adapt its model to the European scale, pooling together at least 25,000 volunteers. They participate in 8 international sport events together with volunteers to validate and promote the SCULT model, and organize two large scale SCULT Fest networking conferences to motivate, activate and educate stakeholders from all over the world. There are five international partners in this project: University College of Northern Denmark (DEN), Lithuanian Sport University (LTU), European Volunteer Centre CEV (BEL), Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (FIN), and Club Tartu Marathon (EST). The Erasmus+ Youth Project ‘Gaining Experiences from the UK to Develop Sport and Youth Volunteering in Estonia’ is about innovation through knowledge transfer: utilizing experiences from the UK to develop school sport and youth volunteering in Estonia and strengthening ties between the two countries. The aim of the project is to create links between sport, voluntary work, youth work, and school as an organization. School is a place where young people spend much of their time, therefore it shapes their values, affects their mental and physical abilities, and improves wellbeing.
The MyPromise Europe project is a creative initiative Boosting Sport Volunteering and Grassroots Sport in Europe, led by the SCULT World Sport Volunteers
Movement, where active and sporty people make as volunteers ‘MyPromises’ to bring somebody inactive closer to sport and physical activity. ‘MAKE MY PROMISE – BRING A FRIEND TO SPORT!’ is the slogan of the campaign project in the preparation phase, started in 2019. The main objective of ‘MyPromise Europe’ is to boost sport volunteering and grassroots sport in parallel in Europe, by sporty and active people as new sport volunteers making one-to-one ‘MyPromises’ to bring somebody inactive closer to sports and physical activity. Ideally and in absolute terms, this ‘one-for-one’ approach, where the 1/3 of Europeans who are physically active, would each bring one inactive person closer to sport, would lead us to Europe where 2/3 of its people are physically active, sporty and healthy.
During the 2019 project, participants in 10 MyPromise Europe country events in 10 countries make as sport volunteers 3,500 ‘MyPromises’, and via digital media campaigns, additional 7,000 ‘MyPromises’ made to bring inactive people closer to sport and physical activity in 2019. MyPromise.eu technological platform is developed to support the ‘MyPromise’ giving (supply side of the MyPromise model), as well as to count the number of inactive people activated through the promises (demand side of the MyPromise model). To have the widest possible effect, 10 MyPromise Europe country events were planned to take place in parallel to 10 consecutive city marathons in Spring 2019.
Outputs and outcomes
The outputs and outcomes of SCULT include increased sport volunteering and grassroots sport, social inclusion through sport, gender equality in sport, and health-enhancing physical activity. Development of overall cross-border sports volunteering is one of the main outcomes of its activities. The volunteering enables unemployed youngsters to gain experiences which makes them more employable in the labor market.
SCULT is an organization in the start-up phase, it still constantly develops its organization and services. The main idea is to reduce the number of inactive persons so that each active person will engage an inactive one. The impact is calculated by the number of new members in sport clubs and organisations, more participants and money for sport event organisers, more training groups and work for coaches and mentors, more interest and money from sponsors for sport events, more clients and money for sport product manufacturers, more clients and money for sport service providers, etc. The positive impact can be also calculated by the reduced spending on health care for government. The wider impact is evident by happier and more inclusive and productive society.
Impact
The indirect effects of the activities extend to the society in general. In recent years, it is seen from the crowdsourcing and crowdfunding arena that one-for-one approaches are personal, committing and extremely powerful to make change happen. ‘If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one,’ is famously said by Mother Teresa. SCULT initiatives employ the same philosophy to the growing inactivity and diminishing popularity of sport volunteering problem in Europe. ‘Make MyPromise – Bring A Friend to Sport!’ is used as a motto of the MyPromise project.
SCULT blog https://www.scult.org/en/blog contains inspirational stories of volunteers how they, by dedicating their time, energy, and expertise, have helped to make a positive impact on the lives of many people.
Some examples from people who have been nominated with SCULT ‘Volunteer of the year’ awards:
‘I volunteer, because I’m looking for my dream job’. ‘I volunteer, because my effort gives positive energy Taking about her experiences she brought out how to others’ ... ‘Volunteering has given me a lot of volunteering has given her lots of experiences, new experience and life management skills, that’s also friends and also much knowledge about event why I like to keep volunteering. I have also improved management.’ my English and met a lot of new people who I've become friends with. I had the opportunity to travel around Europe and even Australia, where I was an Aino Lahtinen SCULT orienteering coach, a school teacher, a mapper and a volunteer for 7 months last year. So many incredible Source: https://bit.ly/2XHrlM2 memories that I will remember for life. I would like to become a sport event manager or a sport organization manager in the future – I think volunteering is at the base of these future opportunities I might get or find, and always a good ‘I volunteer, because I’m having a positive impact on thing to put in one's curriculum.’ someone’s life!’ When sharing his experiences and speaking about motivation Aled mentioned several motivators ... ‘I volunteer in sport for a number of Stefano Raus reasons, it all started because I loved sport and the idea of being able to get a job in sport from volunSource: https://bit.ly/2F0Yko4 teering in sport was incredible. Over time, I began to love the fact that I was encouraging others to be physically active and improve their health and well-being, the idea that I am having a positive ‘I volunteer, because I want to be a better person’. impact on someone's life is something that motiHer advice to people who are thinking about vates me.’ volunteering: ‘Just give it a go, and you’ll see the benefits it gives you! Your actions will help an event to succeed, but they will also bring magic to your life, Aled Davies and very strong connections with people!’ Source: https://bit.ly/2F7qVbw
Olivia Margain
Dr. Ott Pärna, the founder and CEO of SCULT considers the most important values of sports volunteering to be the various social skills that volunteering provides and the social diversity that it supports in many ways. He argues that, although the target group of the Central Baltic Program Youth-Sport-Vol was unemployed young people, people from different social and cultural backgrounds were working side by side at all ages and stages of life. ‘The more different the company, the better’ says Pärna, and adds: ‘The value comes from being able to communicate with each other and thereby broaden the world view, there is a lot of mentoring and other learning from each other.’ There are activities for those sports volunteers who have less physical abilities, for example, young people with visual impairments have unlocked medals at IRONMAN’s triathlon. The social background of young people themselves is very different, some of them learn, some do not learn.
For people who have done something for half a day for others, the probability of getting on a ‘wrong path’ is about 80 percent lower, according to different data. Social responsibility and sense of belonging and positive reference groups arise. Pärna says: ‘One of the greatest values in volunteering at sports competitions is that there is no difference between being an athlete, an assistant in logistics, or at different levels in sports – everyone is equal, mutual respect is very high, everybody depends on each
other. ‘One for all, all for one’. One of the golden rules and success factors is definitely a promise – if you have made a promise, you have to adhere to it – other people depend on you, the overall success of a sporting event or the athletic career of some athlete may depend on you.’ This in turn teaches young people a sense of responsibility and tolerance, which in turn enables to understand different organizations and cultures.
In addition to learning and teaching the skills that young people need to enter the labor market, it is worth mentioning the activities Youth-Sport-Vol initiative Volunteer support. For example, a 9-meter treadmill for a visually impaired girl was built, which was carried through the 10km race, so that she could pass the runway of the Tartu Running Marathon.
SCULT’s efforts to involve young people have not gone unnoticed. For example, to draw attention to social exclusion in a creative way, the desirable recognition was given to the Golden Egg Competition. President Kersti Kaljulaid also recognized the organization with the Year of Volunteer of the Year 2018, and the Tallinn City Government raised SCULT in the Great Action for Young People in Tallinn 2018 competition.
