Strategic planning can be a helpful tool in navigating changing and dynamic environments, particularly as community sport organizations begin the process of COVID-19 recovery. Talking to stakeholders, evaluating club resources, considering the community profile, and examining the competition are important steps to consider when beginning the strategic planning process.
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Sport organizations play an important role in engaging and empowering Black girls and women in sport. By building stronger relationships with communities and recognizing and addressing existing barriers, such as language, cost and social or cultural norms, organizations can support Black women and girls as coaches and athletes.
In 2021, the Government of Canada announced it would invest $80 million to support increased participation in organized community sport, particularly among underrepresented groups including Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQQIA+ and new Canadians. Careful planning is required to enhance these groups’ participation opportunities in community sport. Sport leaders can use strategic planning as an important tool for when sport clubs seek to attract new members.
As the effects of climate change continue to grow, so do its effects on local sports. A recent study found that community-level sport clubs are particularly vulnerable to extreme climate events through damage to playing fields, increased injury risks, and increased operating costs. Adapting sport management practices to counter these changes will be critical for local sport organizations to demonstrate resilience.
This blog post provides a recap of the third webinar in the 4‑part mini-series Engaging Girls and Women in Sport. SIRC and Canadian Women & Sport co-hosted the mini-series, which you can access or learn more about by visiting our SIRC Expert Webinars page.
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Black girls and women face significant hurdles as athletes and coaches. Those hurdles are on top of barriers faced by all women and girls in sport. By engaging and empowering Black coaches in the community, you can have an immense impact on the positive sport experiences of young Black girls and women. In this webinar, panelists explored the lived experience of Black community coaches. The panelists discussed ways to decrease barriers and increase support for Black youth and adults to coach at the community level.
Webinar panelists included:
- Shauna Bookal, Executive Director, Field Hockey Ontario
- Mariah Wright, head coach, Farias Soccer Academy and Halifax County United Soccer
- Brittnee Habbib, co-founder, Girl Power’d
- Leisha Strachan, Ph.D., professor and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies, University of Manitoba
Q: Why is the representation of Black women and girls in coaching important, especially at the community level and how can we achieve it?
All panelists agreed that representation is essential for Black coaches. As Shauna Bookal put it, “See It. Be It. Achieve It. One of the main reasons why young Black girls do not get involved in sport is they do not see someone they can relate to.”
Having role models is especially important for young athletes. Role models not only build connections, but also provide athletes with guidance and help shape their life trajectories. Representation in coaching can be especially important at the grassroots level.
“It was great to have someone who understood what I was going through and understood what I had to face every day to make it out of my neighbourhood. I realized I was blessed to have a Black male coach to start with and then a Black female coach in my teenage years when I needed a role model.”
Shauna Bookal
One way to achieve better representation, according to panelists, is by increasing opportunities available for Black coaches and athletes. Another way is to foster interest and participation in administrative and management roles. Providing funding and scholarships, creating mentorships and focusing on early engagement can all help to move closer to this representation goal.
Q: What are unique barriers Black women and girls may face when getting involved in community coaching?
Some challenges that may discourage Black women and girls from becoming community coaches include language, accessibility and costs, as well as social norms.
Language is an important way to build inclusion. Participation levels are going to suffer if participants aren’t able to understand the language that’s used in coaching programs when it contains unfamiliar vocabulary and terms.
“…some of the language barriers are words I didn’t see on a regular basis growing up. I know for some people… if they get frustrated about what they’re trying to read or what you’re trying to say, that can turn [them] off.”
Shauna Bookal
The cost of participating in coaching programs can be a significant barrier for some participants. Other individuals may not be able to take time off from work to attend full-day courses. In addition to registration fees, access to programs can also be limited by physical barriers (such as getting to venues) and virtual barriers (limited access to computers, tables or the Internet). Finally, not knowing about available programs and opportunities is another limiting factor. “Allowing people to have the opportunity [and] making people aware of the opportunities [are] crucial,” says Mariah Wright.
Too often, Black coaches face the unique challenge of being compared to other coaches who aren’t Black. For example, their differences from traditional coaching styles are labeled as incorrect. “You can’t fit a circle in a square hole,” emphasizes Shauna Bookal. “You can’t have me be like all the other coaches [who] are out there because we aren’t the same.”
Q: What can be done to better support and increase representation of Black women and girls in coaching roles and as athletes at the national level?
The panelists identified several areas where changes would have the most impact.
- Financial support and community outreach
Cost is a major barrier. If sport organizations can offer funding for individuals from marginalized communities to pursue coaching careers, especially over the long term, many of these individuals would welcome such support. In addition to financial support, organizations can enact change by cultivating symbiotic relationships. For example, hosting free clinics in communities, with the people who participate in these clinics volunteering in return, will benefit everyone and can increase community involvement and sport participation.
- Understanding Black culture and experiences
Recognizing Eurocentric biases in traditional coaching programs and certifications is another way of supporting representation. Panelists emphasized that coaching Black athletes can be significantly different from coaching athletes of other backgrounds. It’s important for coaches to understand Black culture and Black athletes’ experiences. Education programs can help address this for coaches.
“Black hair is a story on its own and in gymnastics, there is a typical hairstyle: a slicked back bun [that] you have to make nice and tight. Curly afros cannot do that. It hurts us to be able to do that. So, understanding that when you have a mandatory hairstyle that one Black girl cannot do, that now affects self-esteem. It starts adding in more things that’s not even dealing with our sport or the actual competition. It is so important to understand culture.”
Brittnee Habbib
- Engaging Black parents, guardians and communities
To help build diversity in sport, engage Black parents, guardians and communities. Engagement can help them see value in participating in sport and give them confidence that their child will be safe in that environment.
Q: What’s the appropriate and respectful language that sport organizations should be aware of and use around the Black community?
Asking your stakeholders is the best approach, say the panelists. Everyone’s different and it’s disrespectful to assume you know what’s respectful, as assumptions are often driven by societal stereotypes.
“If you don’t know, ask questions… Even if you have four Black athletes in your program, don’t just ask one and assume all of them want to be called the same thing. Humble yourselves and ask questions.”
Brittnee Habbib
The language that coaches use can have a tremendous impact on the athlete, both positive and negative. For this reason, “as coaches, we need to be more intentional [and] speak with purpose when we do talk to our girls,” says Mariah Wright.
Q: How can community sport organizations engage Black communities to develop inclusion?
Clubs need to do their research and understand how they can best interact with the community. There are many avenues to build engagement. Clubs can participate in events, such as Family Day or Sports Day, or work with schools, established groups and local community centres. Another strategy can be organizing “try-it” days to let children try sports and providing information for parents and guardians to address common concerns. Clubs need to be proactive in helping families navigate barriers to participation, from cost to transportation to programs. Finally, a powerful way to reach out to Black communities can be by identifying allies and promoters, especially within the Black community, who can talk about the sport programs and their benefits.
This webinar highlighted some of the barriers that Black girls and women experience in sport. It also shared ways that organizations and individuals can increase support for Black athletes and coaches. The conversation among the panelists emphasized the need to have broader discussions about the lived experiences of Black coaches and athletes. These discussions can be an important step toward creating much-needed changes across sport communities.
About the panelists
Find out more about the webinar panelists, access a recording of the Engaging Black Community Coaches webinar or learn more about the Engaging Girls and Women in Sport mini-series by visiting the SIRC Expert Webinars page.
About Canadian Women & Sport
Canadian Women & Sport is dedicated to creating an equitable and inclusive Canadian sport and physical activity system that empowers girls and women. The aim is to empower them as active participants and leaders, within and through sport. With a focus on systemic change, we partner with sport organizations, governments and leaders to challenge the status quo and build better sport through gender equity.
Tell, teach, and track. Those are the 3 Ts of concussion awareness and education, according to David Hill, a program coordinator at the Castaway Wanderers Rugby Football Club. For more great tips on how to get your organization’s concussion initiatives off ground, check out the stories and ideas of community sport organizations from across Canada in the SIRCuit.
Sport leaders can use strategic planning to help identify their organization’s current position, where it plans to go, and how it intends to get there (O’Brien et al., 2019). Strategic planning has been linked with improved organizational change processes as well as enhanced organizational effectiveness, resilience and performance (for example, Hu et al., 2014; Liao & Huang, 2016). And in the community sport setting, strategic planning can help reduce problems related to financial health, uncertainty around a club’s future, and recruitment and retention of volunteers (Wicker & Breuer, 2014).
Although leaders of community sport organizations increasingly recognize the importance of strategy, the planning process can be challenging. Even before the COVID‑19 pandemic, many community sport organizations were grappling with organizational issues such as difficulty recruiting and retaining volunteers, facility costs, and increased competition for funding. These challenges may reinforce a problem-solving style that’s reactive and pragmatic, rather than proactive and strategic.
Leaders of community sport organizations have the opportunity to reshape and reimagine club priorities that serve the needs of members and the broader community. It’s timely that the federal government recently announced it would invest $80 million to support increased participation in organized community sport, particularly among underrepresented groups including Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQQIA+ and new Canadians (Canadian Heritage, 2021). Careful planning is required to enhance these groups’ participation opportunities in community sport. Sport leaders can use strategic planning as an important tool for when sport clubs seek to attract new members.
This blog identifies 4 steps that can help guide club leaders as they begin the strategic planning process.
Step 1: Talk to stakeholders
Before engaging in strategic planning, sport leaders should first talk with their club’s stakeholders. Stakeholders include the board of directors, other key volunteers such as coaches and officials, staff such as executive directors and administrators, and of course club members. Engaging in a discussion about stakeholder values and priorities can help sport leaders understand what these stakeholders expect from the club moving forward. In learning about stakeholder expectations, sport leaders are better equipped to ensure stakeholder priorities and the strategic plan are well aligned. This alignment is critical for generating internal support for the plan, which affects whether the strategic plan can be successfully implemented.
Step 2: Evaluate club resources
The second step is to consider the resources that can be dedicated to strategic planning. In light of resource constraints, this second step helps ensure the resulting plan can be scaled to a level that’s achievable and realistic. Resources include:
- Human resources: Volunteers are critical for the day-to-day operations of many clubs. So, it’s important to consider who will lead the strategic planning process, and, perhaps more importantly, who will be responsible for implementing the strategic plan. While both these tasks may fall to the same person or same group (or groups) of people, they don’t always need to lead both tasks.
- Financial resources: Sport leaders should also consider the financial resources that can be dedicated to strategic planning and identify from which revenue streams these resources will be drawn. This involves an assessment of resources needed to engage in planning (for example, a consultant) as well as longer-term financial resources needed for implementing the plan.
- Facility partner constraints: The availability of suitable facilities may determine which priorities are achievable, particularly around membership growth. Renting sport facilities from municipalities means many community sport organizations have little control over when and how frequently they can access the facilities. The sport organization may be unable to modify facilities in ways that would make it easier to offer different programs (for example, sport-specific field lines). Thus, it’s critical for sport leaders to know their facility partners’ priorities and future opportunities those partners have identified.
Step 3: Consider the community profile
Before developing strategic priorities, sport leaders should spend more effort in understanding the community that their club operates within. This is particularly important because the demographics of a municipality will affect who accesses sport programming. For example, leaders of clubs operating in areas with rising home prices have reported that younger families with children are priced out of the housing market, and as a result, it’s hard to recruit young players to join their clubs. Although changes in a community profile can challenge sport leaders to re-think and modify the programs they’ve offered in the past, changes can also present new opportunities for growth, innovation and diversification. As club leaders uncover how their community profile looks, they may also find new groups that they can tap into, such as new Canadians and older adults.
Step 4: Examine the competition
As sport leaders begin their strategic planning process, they can get a baseline by understanding the different options of sport-specific programs available in the local community through other clubs and organizations (for example, academies, municipal government, YMCA). Knowing the cost to participate in similar programs at other clubs, as well as the proximity to organizations that offer the same sport may prompt sport leaders to consider what seems to be working well for other clubs and whether their club needs to work to differentiate itself from other clubs offering similar programs. Community sport organizations that are operating in an environment with a high degree of competition among clubs may need to be more proactive with respect to developing new and innovative ways to attract and retain members.
Strategic planning for future growth
Overall, strategic planning can be a helpful tool in navigating changing and dynamic environments, particularly as community sport organizations begin the process of recovery post-COVID‑19. By considering the 4 listed steps, sport leaders will be better positioned to ensure that their strategic planning efforts are more effective in helping them meet their organizational goals and grow their membership.
For more information about this research, please contact Kristen Morrison at kristenamber.morrison@utoronto.ca
Earlier this year, SIRC launched Community Activation Grants to help communities across Canada recover from COVID-19 through Safe Sport opportunities. Discover how sport organizations from coast to coast are using the grants to activate Safe Sport and concussion awareness initiatives in their communities in the SIRCuit.
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