Forms are temporary, class is permanent - Sport England

21 October 2024

Screenshot of report with the title 'Forms are temporary, class is permanent'. Still love that FF let me use that title.

In autumn 2023 I worked in a team at FF Studio to design and build a tactical, invite-only fund for Sport England in 12 weeks.

“We formed a team of seven - five people from FF Studio, two from Sport England - and hit the ground running. We wanted to find out how many ‘norms’ of grantmaking and grantseeking could be questioned, pushed or changed within the pilot timeframe. We were unencumbered by previous technology choices, and wanted to identify how Sport England could make funding more accessible, accountable and equitable.

The team ran user research with sports clubs and community groups with grantseeking experience, and one other funding organisation. We tested what modern, off-the-shelf tooling and a focus on user experience (including for users with accessibility needs) might mean for fund applications. And we introduced questions about accessibility and climate action to the application process.”

I’m glad we added a question on climate action to the application form. It’s a small thing but it’s good that funding organisations show applicants that action matters, and might become a condition of funding in future. The timing was good: a few weeks later, Sport England’s chair Chris Boardman spoke at the Blue Earth summit event about sport needing to do more on climate action, and in 2024 Sport England added sustainability aims to its Movement Fund, and is calling for more climate action.

FF Studio’s team (Anna Goss, Eliot Fineberg, Kim Morley, Sonia Turcotte) were an inspiring delight to work with, as were Cassie, Sian and Steve at Sport England. We were co-designing a prototype every couple of days, and using that to bring a fund into existence and some new ideas into view.

Find yourself teams like this and let it rip.

More on the work over at FF Studio: To create the conditions for 21st century services you need to build little versions of that future now and Eliot here.