Open Funding Pilot

13 - 17 November 2023

As a reminder, we are a team from Sport England and FF Studio working together on the Open Funding Pilot.

It will help Sport England try new ways of working and new funding models to enable them to get more people in underserved communities active. It will also show the wider Sport England organisation what delivery looks like if we shorten feedback cycles.

Weeknotes are a quick recap of the important things a team has done each week, what we’ve learned, and what’s the plan for next week. They also help us work in the open.

This is the end of week 7.

1. User journey

Last week, we spent time iterating the prototype. This week, we started looking at the other steps in the user journey, both before and after the form.

Screenshot of a Miro board showing individual boxes for each step of the journey A journey map showing all the comms needed before and after the application form

Most importantly, we have started writing the fund position and criteria. We’ve been thinking and talking about this from the beginning, and it has guided our decisions throughout. However, it needed to be put down on paper so we could get feedback and find consensus: up to £250k, rolling assessment, one-off awards.

We also shared the prototype with the Investment Management Team and got really great feedback. Thank you James and Claire.

2. Assessment

We explored 2 prototype assessment models that incorporated learnings from Small Grants and assessor feedback, and realised that both approaches had a lot in common. We are bringing the best ideas from both together. Once we have a new, amalgamated version, we’ll look at it again with fresh eyes.

We want to get the assessment model progressed in the next week so that we can make sure we are being clear with potential applicants about what their application is being assessed against, and how.

Assessment and form design are one and the same thing. We believe a user should be able to find guidance about what they need to do in the place they’re doing it. So: guidance embedded in a form or interface, with no need to sit with two documents side by side. That’s as true for an assessor as it is for a grant applicant.

Next week:

Next week looks exciting: