Lakshyaa's Participation in Making Sport Work Forum 2023

Lakshyaa team was part of the Making Sport Work Forum 2023, held on the 28th of April in Mumbai. The event was organized by The Sports and Society Accelerator (SSA) in partnership with Meraki Sport & Entertainment, and research partner Pacta.

The topic of the round table discussion was: How can we unlock the full potential of sport using CSR?

This round table discussion was intended as a starting point to identify the trends and opportunities for sports CSR, encourage more research and understanding of the sector and build the institutional capacity and systems that will enable sports CSR to be used as a powerful instrument with impact on community, health, education, empowerment, and inclusion.

The forum was held to understand the emerging trends from the Indian Sports CSR landscape.

Some of the key points/issues in the Sports CSR space are as follows -

1. Sports CSR contributed <1% of cumulative CSR spend between 2014-21 (Based on data collected from www.csr.gov.in)

2. CSR expenditure towards sports remains a very small piece in the overall pie - Sports 1%, Health 21%, Education 31% and Others 37%

Following are some action points proposed by Lakshyaa, as a way forward that may help Sports get more attention in the CSR space -

1. Formulation of a Sports CSR Policy Framework and embed it into the CSR Policy Framework of the companies.

• Orient the CSR Committee

• Show the Business Case to CSR

2. Align Sports CSR to CSR Impact - (which is now mandatory for >1 Cr project outlays)

3. Get pool of Sports Icons from India and around the globe to promote Sports CSR as per above for the masses.

4. Right to play - being a fundamental right

5. Embed Importance of Sports in National Education Policy / National Curriculum Framework etc. as a mandatory soft skill

6. Fitness and health in itself is a pre-requisite for being healthy, and able to lead a purposeful/energetic life.

7. Making Sports Aspirational

8. Give a lot of importance on improving and innovating Impact Assessment parameters for Sports. These have to be defined properly based on detailed research and should be on point to capture the intended outcomes.

Lakshyaa with its expertise in CSR (Policy, Grant Management, Implementation and Compliances) and Sports for Development, looks forward to taking up the journey of advocacy, training, policy formulation etc. for CSR in Sports, and create policies/frameworks that can be embedded as a subset of the main CSR Policy Framework of CSR eligible companies.