The Research Is In — And It's Now Online

For the past two years, we've been part of a multi-year study looking at how sport equity coalitions actually work — what helps them succeed, what gets in the way, and what it really takes to build collective power in communities.

That research is now complete, and we've put together a dedicated space where you can explore the findings.

The study drew on 400+ surveys and more than 1,300 pages of interviews with backbone leaders and member organizations across 14 cities. It was conducted in partnership with Temple University's Sport Industry Research Center, and resulted in four separate reports: an overall summary, a backbone leader interview report, a member organization interview report, and a member survey report.

Some of what came out of this work confirmed what many of us already knew from experience — trust is foundational, funding constraints shape everything, and clarifying the backbone role is an ongoing challenge. But the data also surfaced some things worth sitting with, like how rarely member organizations feel involved in coalition decision-making, and how few coalitions have shared measurement systems in place to track progress.

This research belongs to the field. We hope it's useful — whether you're building a new coalition, trying to make the case to funders, or just looking for evidence to back up what you've been saying for years.

Explore the research → coalitionsforsportequity.org/research