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semmelweis university - Faculty of Physical Education and Sport ...

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Sarah Boyle<br />

University <strong>of</strong> Toronto <strong>Faculty</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Physical</strong> <strong>Education</strong> <strong>and</strong> Health, Toronto, Canada<br />

Supervisor: Dr. Peter Donnelly, associate pr<strong>of</strong>essor<br />

Development <strong>and</strong> Preliminary testing <strong>of</strong> a Sustainability Rubric for Development<br />

through <strong>Sport</strong> Organizations<br />

The recent acknowledgment <strong>of</strong> sport as a powerful tool in addressing the United Nation‘s<br />

Millennium Development Goals has resulted in an increase in development through sport<br />

(DTS) initiatives. A concern with the flux <strong>of</strong> DTS initiatives over the past decade is the<br />

sustainability <strong>of</strong> these programs. This study conducted an initial assessment <strong>of</strong> sustainability,<br />

as there has been no large-scale evaluation on the sustainability <strong>of</strong> DTS organizations at this<br />

time. For this study sustainability is defined as the ability <strong>of</strong> a program to survive or for<br />

changes to remain once the initial catalyst (in this case the DTS initiative) is removed. For the<br />

primary purpose <strong>of</strong> this study a sustainability rubric was developed which consists <strong>of</strong> three<br />

evaluative levels assessing seven criteria (evaluation, funding, goals, social integration,<br />

volunteers, volunteers preparation, <strong>and</strong> exit strategies) deemed important to the sustainability<br />

<strong>of</strong> DTS initiatives. The second purpose <strong>of</strong> this project was to conduct a pilot study to test this<br />

sustainability rubric <strong>and</strong> determine its abilities to assess a group <strong>of</strong> DTS organizations <strong>and</strong><br />

provide a preliminary glimpse into the current levels <strong>of</strong> sustainability within this group <strong>of</strong><br />

organizations. 60 Organizations were selected r<strong>and</strong>omly from the International Platform for<br />

<strong>Sport</strong> <strong>and</strong> Development website (an online hub for organizations involved in DTS).<br />

Preliminary results indicate that the majority <strong>of</strong> DTS organizations are operating on a level <strong>of</strong><br />

sustainability <strong>of</strong> a one or two on a three point scale. In respect to the seven categories<br />

comprising the rubric the category that had the lowest overall score across all <strong>of</strong> the assessed<br />

DTS organizations was evaluation, followed closely by volunteer preparation.<br />

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