MyPromise: Boosting Grassroots Sport and Sport Volunteering in Europe
▶Summary
Background Inactivity levels are growing and the number of sport volunteers is diminishing in Europe. MyPromise: Boosting Grassroots Sport and Sport Volunteering in Europe was an innovative and socially engaging project tackling both of these challenges. The idea of the MyPromise Europe initiative was to reach and activate in sports currently inactive population using innovative and scalable “one-for-one” approach. Make MyPromise, Bring A Friend to Sport! was the campaign slogan. Objectives According to the objective of the Erasmus+ project, sporty and physically active people gave “MyPromises” to involve inactive people in sports and an active lifestyle. The idea was to boost grassroots sport and sport volunteering in parallel in Europe. Only 1/3 of Europeans are physically active, and the project wanted to use them as salesmen, with the aim that each of them would bring at least one inactive person to exercise and sports, thus doubling the number of active people in Europe. Implementation The project was implemented in six European countries, including Belgium, Great Britain, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Greece. It consisted of a My Promise Europe campaign promotion for various sporting events in the project countries. In addition, digital media campaigns were planned and implemented, the digital supporting environment https://mypromise.eu/was developed and two MyPromise Europe Inspiration Days were organised (2021 & 2022) with 477 participants (64 international). Achievements MyPromise Europe campaign was promoted in 23 international and local sport events in project countries across Europe in 2019-2022. Through physical visibility at these events, supported by focussed digital media campaigns, the MyPromise Europe campaign "Make MyPromise, Bring A Friend to Sport!“ reached ca 2,190,000 people. With the support of such visibility and the actions executed, more than 25,000 MyPromises were made to play sport with a friend, family member, work- or schoolmate.