Sport England wants to make sure that the grassroots sport sector is as effective as can be. That’s why, over the last few years, they’ve been working hard to develop a strategic support programme for National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of sport, promoting a stronger focus on organisational strategy and putting the customer at the heart of thinking, planning and delivery.
Sport England’s pilot HPNGB (High Performing National Governing Bodies) programme went down brilliantly with the organisations that trialed it. Now Sport England needed to reach out to other NGBs in a way that would inspire them to commit time, energy and resource to this intensive but valuable programme.
My task was to find an exciting new way to position the HPNGB programme to NGBs of all shapes and sizes. I began by delving into the existing communications and exploring the landscape that Sport England’s programme sits within. I spoke to a range of important stakeholders, from CEOs of small organisations that were already engaged in the programme to trustees of large national organisations that might be interested in the programme in the future, to understand more about the current mood within the sector; the need for the programme; what they understood about it and what they needed to know; and for those that had already completed it, what was great about it and what could be improved.
After presenting a strategic review and set of recommendations to the project team, I created a warm, ‘human’ positioning for the HPNGB programme which is also concise and impactful for a very busy audience. I went on to produce copy for the web page, a leaflet and a presentation template, and worked with my design partner on a new visual style for the communications.
Sport England was delighted with the new HPNGB brand. Following the project we enjoyed a great ongoing working relationship with Sport England, producing a range of communications for them in 2016-17.
*I worked on this project as part of a great team at Neo.