The CSR for Parasport project, consortium wants to increase the competences and capacity of Sport organisations for People with Disabilities (SOPD) through good governance with special focus on fundraising activities, in particular building long lasting partnership towards socially responsible (CSR) companies. Project will be realised in partnership between The Croatian Institute for CSR (IDOP) as a coordinator and partners Croatian Paralympic Committee, Hungarian Paralympic Committee, Slovak Paralympic Committee and Slovenian Paralympic Committee. Project will address collaboration partnership priority and address currently existing void of maximising potential of collaboration between CSR companies and SOPD. Namely, according to partners sources today nearly 90% of NPC of incomes comes from public funds (which represents the financial vulnerability of these organizations) while other 10% of incomes come from short-term donations from the business sector. There is a certain amount of activities of fundraising toward the business sector, but still there is unused potential of answering to the social need from CSR companies in supporting SOPD. According to that, a long-term benefit for NPCs can be the creation of a long-term partnership in which companies will be more inclusive in implementing their CSR policies (for example: long-term financial support, employment of athletes with disabilities, opportunities to finance sports for young people etc.).
With this project the consortium wants to:
- increase competencies of SOPD particularly related to fundraisingand
- build a bridge between SOPD and CSR compaines.
In preparing the project application, the project partners identified operational background regarding the social and economic status of the SOPD that need to be addressed during project lifetime (each need will is explained in the second question):
- Low involvement of young athletes in spor.
- Insufficient media coverage of sports for people with disabilities
- Low percentage of people with disabilities in project partner countries who are physically active
- Insufficient adaptation of equipment and infrastructure to the needs of a person with a disability
- Insufficient (symbolic) financing of sports in the state budget.
- Insufficient amount of sport programs for people with disabilities
- Lack of educated people
- Increased interest from companies in building awareness for important societal issues
With this project the consortium wants to increase competences and capacity of Sport organisations for People with Disabilities (SOPD) through good governance with special focus on fundraising activities to build bridge for long lasting partnership towards CSR companies. Increased competences and capacity of SOPD is of great importance because with good governance in SOPD it will be more sustainable to integrate people with disabilities into sport activities, thus contributing to realization of the Erasmus Plus