EURO2020 'Donate-A-Drink' Campaign
If you are in a position to be able to support our current campaign, we would be incredibly grateful. To donate, please TEXT EUROS TO 70085 TO DONATE £4 TO MAKE SPORT FAIRER or donate online HERE!
By the equitysport Fundraising Team
Last Friday, we launched a new fundraising campaign to coincide with what was supposed to be the start of EURO2020, and it has been a really positive start - a big thank you to all our supporters!
On average, someone watching a live sporting event at a pub or bar in the UK will spend £30 on food and drink - which over the course of a tournament like the Euros, mounts up to a huge sum of money!!
Now that COVID-19 has all but cancelled the international sporting calendar for 2020, we’re asking a favour of sports fans the world over - that over the course of the month that we would, in normal times, be flocking to our favourite watering holes to feast upon the best footballers in Europe going head-to-head over a few beers with our friends and families, that you donate the cost of just one drink (£4) to equitysport.
We’ll use your donation to tackle inequality in sport and advance diversity and equal opportunity for everyone, regardless of who people are, where they come from or what their background might be.
Sport is a field of experimentation and a showcase for new ideas, technologies and developments. We appreciate that we are living in challenging times, and that with each new day comes new calls for help and support. But true equity in sport is something that is achievable. It’s something that already has an overwhelming unanimity of support across cultures all over the world - all we need to do is focus that universal desire for a level playing field, harness the goodwill associated with sport, and take action, in manageable and effective ways.
We, as a charity, exist to find the mechanisms, processes, policies and actions that are required to deliver on that yearning for fairness in sport.
It’s said that sport is a microcosm of society in general, and so if we can be successful here in delivering change, in devising ways and means to provide equity to all in sport, then there is no limit to the impact we can have on the world at large, because we will created a roadmap, shined a light and lit a beacon for wider society to follow.
WHAT ARE WE FUNDRAISING FOR?
Times are tough for charities, especially those working internationally, and equitysport isn’t immune to the pressures that many industries have been feeling recently.
Whilst we’ve been quick to adapt to the impact of COVID-19 and global lockdowns, it has massively decreased our fundraising capacity, and in turn will potentially increase the costs of running our projects longer term.
We are committed to ensuring we continue to deliver and grow our capacity building projects across the Global South (developing world) in some of the most under-served and disadvantaged communities. These include our workforce development projects in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals - projects like our Mentorship Programmes - but these aren’t free to run, and however much cost-cutting we do, we still need funding in order to deliver our services in an effective way.
Each drink (£4) donated during our EURO2020 campaign can cover the costs of maintaining our online mentoring platform for one mentee : mentor relationship for one month; so with over 20 drinks donated already, we’ve essentially secured two years worth of mentoring for two mentorships in the first 48 hours!
Beyond capacity building, we are also committed to delivering change from an advocacy point of view. Local capacity building can only do so much to level the playing field in global sport - it also needs the support of effective policy to close the disparities in the global ecosystem along socioeconomic, gender, class, race and geographical lines - something we are committed to helping inform through proper research and information gathering.
Even when bolstered with innovative and cross-sector partnerships, this kind of research isn’t cheap, especially when conducted across the world. Our team of amazing volunteers are charging ahead with incredible zeal to establish and build out the facts and figures behind inequality in sport, but at some stage, very soon, we are going to need to deploy resources to bring that research to both the public and decision makers around the world, and do so in a way that stands up to academic rigour, and can realistically inform and guide policy decisions on a global level.
equitysport remains 100% committed to ensuring every penny we have is stretched as far as possible and we will only ever deploy resources where we can maximise impact in the long term and in ways that remain true to our mission to deliver on our vision of a fairer, more equitable sporting world.
If you are in a position to be able to support our current campaign, we would be incredibly grateful. To donate, please TEXT EUROS TO 70085 TO DONATE £4 TO MAKE SPORT FAIRER or donate online HERE!
Thank you for your ongoing support - together, we WILL advance equality, diversity and equal opportunity in and through sport. Find out more about the 'Donate A Drink' campaign HERE.