Results of the 2017 sportanddev.org annual survey

Every year, we ask users to provide feedback on our services, what could be improved and the future of sportanddev.org. This year we had a big response – here are some of the highlights.

About survey participants
69% of participants were male and most were young – 62% were under 40 years old. 37% live in Europe and it was encouraging to see that second place was sub-Saharan Africa, with 20%. North America came next, with 14% and the remaining 29% were spread quite evenly across different regions.

The largest group of participants (43%) said they are working in the sports sector. The rest reflected the diversity of our target audience, evenly spread across academics, government employees, donors, students and the media.

When asked to pick the three most pressing topics in the world today, health and education were the most popular choices with 55% of the respondents selecting each of them. Conflict resolution (44%), climate change (40%), the integration of refugees and migrants (36%) and work on the sustainable development goals (32%) were the next most popular choices.

Our community remains quite actively engaged, with 64% saying they read at least three articles per week. 9% said they read more than 10 per week. 49% follow us on social media and 39% are registered Team Players.

Feedback on current services and suggestions for the future
The sportanddev.org newsletter, news and views section and jobs page remain our most used services. Highlighted initiatives, the events calendar and the toolkit are also popular.

Respondents were given six choices and room to provide their options for future article series. By far the most popular was a series on sport, education and employment (chosen by 40% respondents). We will publish a series on the topic later in the year.

When asked which “less-frequently featured” region respondents would like to learn more about, the Middle East came out on top, chosen by 40% people. We will ensure that we publish more Middle East specific content over the next 12 months.

Other suggestions made by survey participants included:

• Publish more grant opportunities and information on fundraising
• Involve sportanddev.org in organising learning events and conference workshops
• Launch other language versions (Spanish and Swahili were mentioned)
• Carry out a mapping of global sport and development organisations
• Provide more personal stories from programme participants

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey. We are community driven and your feedback is important to us. While we are not able to promise to implement all suggestions made – some are dependent on financial resources – we take all suggestions seriously and will carry out as many as possible. To provide feedback and/or suggestions throughout the year, please email [email protected].