Fundraising in sport for development: State of the sector 2022-23

This annual report provides a comprehensive overview of the fundraising landscape in sport for development, including income forecasts, fundraising performance, the primary income streams across the sector, and how organisations feel about their future financial sustainability.

The report also contains insight and commentary from our series partners, including Adam Fraser, CEO at Laureus Sport for Good, Dr. Vladimir Borkovic, Director of Strategic Alliances at Common Goal, Paul Hunt, Senior Project Manager at The International Platform on Sport and Development and Game Mothibi, Senior Manager at TAFISA.

The underpinning theme of last year’s report was one of positivity. Many organisations were seeing signs of recovery post-Covid, with almost 90% stating that they were confident in their ability to recover from the financial impact of the pandemic. Over half were forecasting income growth for 2021, with two-thirds expecting further growth in 2022.

Pleasingly, this optimism is a continued trend for this year’s report: over half of organisations are forecasting income growth for this financial year, up significantly from the previous year. While the sector has faced monumental challenges and disruption over the past few years, perhaps some of this has also stimulated reflection and change – trying new and innovative fundraising activities has been credited as having the biggest impact on the positive fundraising outlook.

However, there is yet more that can be done. Last year’s report and our subsequent webinar series discussed the sector’s dependency on grant funding, and the inherent vulnerability this engenders for affected organisations. The lack of income diversification remains prominent this year, and we cannot ignore that 2022 has been another year of global uncertainty and tumult, most notably with the devastating conflict in Ukraine and global cost-of-living crisis.

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