2019 has been a great year at Substance! Not only have we continued to develop and grow our Views evaluation system but our research team has been working alongside a range of organisations across the sport and youth sectors to help them better demonstrate the impact they are making to people across the world.

In the UK, we are continuing to evaluate movements and programmes such as GM Moving and Sport England’s Families Fund, whilst also expanding our work into education with MyBnk and the evaluation of their financial education programme.

Internationally, our work with UEFA and their member nation associations has seen us travel the length and breath of Europe to evaluate the social return on investment of football participation. Work which has gained high profile media attention and interest from Government and other stakeholders.

Stepping away from our research, we have recently developed a new benchmarking tool which is already being implemented by Burnley in the Community and Arsenal in the Community to enable the foundations to better analyse their impact.

Looking ahead to 2020 and beyond, we are excited to work with the Wellcome Trust and Children in Need to evaluate the impact of their Curiosity Fund and to get fully underway with the evaluation of the impact of the Rugby League World Cup 2021 legacy programmes in partnership with The Sports Consultancy.

Our CEO Prof Tim Crabbe said:

“this year has been one of our most exiting yet. Mostly because of the fantastic engagement and interest in learning from our partners. We are delighted that our work with so many of them is set to continue alongside a range of new initiatives as we look forward to celebrating our fifteenth anniversary in 2020!”