In May Sport England launched their new five year strategy entitled ‘Towards an Active Nation’. The strategy seeks to stamp out nationwide inactivity by increasing participation levels in groups that are currently under-represented in sport.
Sport England want to achieve this through a combination of new policies and initiatives that will enable national governing bodies to offer a more inclusive, engaging and joined-up service to their members.
At tahdah we echo the sentiments of the wider sports community by welcoming the positive and innovative approach Sport England have taken in combatting this highly important, but often overlooked, issue.
tahdah is an online management system specifically developed for use by national governing bodies and membership associations; we utilise the latest advances in secure cloud computing and data analytics to empower you to manage your organisation more effectively.
In this document we will demonstrate the solutions tahdah can provide to some of the key challenges discussed in the Active Nation strategy.
Customers at the Heart
One of the key ideas introduced by the new strategy is a re-evaluation of the relationship between sports organisations and their customers. Instead of being considered as an external entity, an afterthought in the NGB decision making process, Sport England want to reimagine the role of their customers by putting them at the heart of their operations.
“Customers – the people who play sport and are active or who might be in the future – will be at the heart of everything we do”.
Throughout the development of TahDah the experience of the individual customer has always been at the forefront of our mind. We have focused on liberating the individual and giving them them the autonomy to control and share their personal data across multiple sports & recreational activities whilst giving NGBs actionable data insights that help them create smarter, better informed strategies for the future.
Our mission is to provide an engaging, comprehensive and joined-up service that fulfills all the needs of our customers. We want to make it as easy as possible for our users to manage all of their qualifications, memberships, training, CPD and course bookings in one place. These fully integrated tools make it far easier for an individual interested in sports to engage with their governing body, wherever they are in the country, and begin their sporting journey.
The flourishing online sports community that we have helped to nurture offers an unchallenged wealth of choice for outdoor enthusiasts and promotes organic cross-fertilisation of members within the sports and outdoor activity sectors.
From an NGBs perspective one of the main benefits of our customer-driven approach is the fact that the responsibility of personal data entry is left to the individual candidate - keeping it thorough and up-to-date.
When it comes to the question of: ‘how can we use the data that we have collected in a more effective way?’ tahdah has all the bases covered. We put customers, who create the data, at the heart of everything we do. We want to help NGBs make smarter, better informed decisions by leveraging key data insights about their customers, including groups that are currently under-represented or inactive. Our suite of data analytics tools give NGBs a real-time picture of their organisation, they can learn about the wider needs and motivations of their members and transform this knowledge into more effective strategies for the future.
Volunteering
In their Active Nation strategy Sport England have set out their vision for the future of volunteering. In their consultations with active volunteers they have determined that many people feel undervalued by the current system; they want to see equality restored to the relationship between sports organisations and their volunteers.
“We need to focus on what the volunteer gets out of volunteering, making it easier to fit volunteering in sport into a modern lifestyle, and making volunteers more representative of society”.
tahdah makes volunteering easier and more rewarding. First of all, tahdah is a hub for volunteer networking. Sporting organisations from across the UK and beyond are active on tahdah, promoting short & long term volunteering opportunities. When this is coupled with some of the built-in management features like your own digital CV, online calendars and custom email reminders it allows people to fit their volunteering commitments more easily into their busy, modern lifestyle.
In terms of individual benefit, the system also allows volunteers to record the work they complete and display it as part of their verified professional profile. Volunteers can be rewarded for their efforts through the tahdah system in the form of non-monetary gifts, discounted training opportunities and a spot on our volunteer leaderboards.
Digital Expectations
One of the most important questions raised in the Active Nation strategy is how to engage young people in sport more effectively. Sport England want to invest more in children and young people from the age of five to help build positive attitudes to sport and recreational activity.
“We will focus on pre- and post-school activities that increase children’s capability and enjoyment and lay the foundations for being active throughout their lives”.
At tahdah we believe that to fully engage with young people in 2016 sports organisations have to meet their digital expectations. To attract & retain a younger demographic NGBs need to offer an online component to their members that is cloud-based, multi-device, on-demand, easy-to-use and most importantly fun. tahdah ticks all of these boxes and more.
Throughout our software’s development we have paid special consideration to the issues surrounding children & young people. We have made extensive efforts to create a welcoming, safe and engaging online environment for kids to organise their hobbies and create positive, long lasting attitudes towards sport and health.
To achieve this we have introduced the concept of ‘parent accounts’. Our parental accounts allow the parent or guardian to have access and control over multiple children's accounts on the system. This allows the child (through the parent) to register on awards and courses, receive fully verified awards / qualifications and build their own custom profile, whilst adhering to data protection laws.
The digital profile that they create and customise can be shared with their friends through social media, used to record qualifications and eventually turned into a fully verified digital CV to help secure employment. We want to create fruitful, long-lasting relationships with our customers and support them throughout their lives both professionally and recreationally.
At TahDah we understand that technology can play a significant role in improving people's attitudes towards health and exercise. It can often be a catalyst for inactive people to begin their journey towards regular participation.
Our recently developed mobile app now has full integration with the most popular fitness and health software on the market. We want to make it easier for people to record, organise and manage their exercise - no matter what activity they enjoy.
NGB Efficiency
One particular area of concern for Sport England is driving increased efficiencies and saving costs in any applicable area of NGBs operations. They are also mindful of the current trends in big data technology and its applications; therefore they are pushing their NGBs to use their data more effectively.
“We will encourage the sector to diversify its funding from both private and other public sector sources. We will also encourage them to use their assets – including data – to generate income and to reduce costs”.
This is where TahDah's expertise in efficiency and streamlining come in. Sport England have explicitly said that they expect NGBs to become more efficient in all areas of their work. This is particularly pertinent given the extended remit with no increase in funding that is set to occur. NGBs must now look to save where they can and become more savvy with their spending.
TahDah will revolutionise the way you manage your organisation. We have a proven track record of providing efficiency savings for NGBs. Firstly, all of the day-to-day management tasks that NGBs encounter can be completed within a single online environment. This environment is cloud based and can be accessed remotely, securely, on the move and across a range of devices. The reason TahDah has brought everything together in one place was, through market research, we found numerous NGBs were operating with multiple disparate systems. One for membership, one for course bookings, one for forms, one for event management, one for communications and one for CRM and so on.
Secondly, TahDah is a software as a service (SaaS) platform; we handle all of the data security, hosting and backing up. You don’t have to waste time re-downloading our software on individual devices as it's all online in the cloud. SaaS is also extremely affordable and does not involve a long, expensive and often painful development process.
Workforce development is another area in which TahDah can have a positive effect on your business. Any continual professional development (CPD) that your staff require can be booked through the system in seconds. These training commitments can then be managed on the system with the help of built-in tools.
