ConnectSport has revealed Altair Ltd as its first supporting partner since relaunching as a Community Interest Company. Altair is a consultancy which specialises in helping socially-focused organisations in community impact, strategy and fundraising. Vastly experienced in housing, education and working with local authorities and charities, it also boasts an impressive portfolio in the sport for development sector through the acquisition of Oaks Consultancy, and shares ConnectSport’s vision for building and strengthening the movement. We spoke to Emma Atkins, Director of Sport (pictured right), about Altair’s past work and why it is working to support more charities and organisations across the sport for development sector.
Hi Emma, thanks for speaking to us. Can you tell us about Altair and its past work?
Altair is a consultancy that covers a multitude of sectors including housing, education, sport and sport for development, and the charity sector. We don’t just specialise in one element of an organisation's needs but provide a one-stop shop of expertise, utilising our large team of experienced consultants. As an ex-CEO myself I love this approach as you can form a long-term relationship with the organisations that we support. We work around their purpose and strategy, focusing on their impact, and then moving into income generation/diversification and a range of aspects for organisational development such as governance, financial, HR and IT support. It flows naturally as the organisation transforms and, due to our collective experience, it’s not just about the theory but the reality of implementing growth too, and the pitfalls to avoid. This is why Altair is unique in the marketplace, and through its acquisition of Oaks – which has been working in sport for development since 2008 – we have broadened our wealth of experience and track record, and strengthened our offer to the sector.
We have worked with global leaders in sport for development such as Laureus and GIZ (supported by the German government), and with FIFA, UEFA and the IOC, but we also pride ourselves – like ConnectSport does – on being able to support smaller, impactful organisations that are doing really important work within communities. We’ve worked with around 70 sport for development organisations across the UK, principally supporting them around trust and foundation fundraising with great success. However now we are able to offer much more and now look across all access of income generation. Having access to a team of people who can support with income generation across a variety of sources is really valuable. Everyone in that team, no matter their role, is dedicated to supporting social change. I am in this privileged position at Altair where we are able to talk across sectors and bring people together for social good working across sport, education, charities and housing. We challenge our clients to really focus on what they are really here for and work closely with them to achieve it.
You personally have been working in sport for development for 30 years. Can you tell us about your own journey?
I’ve always been passionate about sport’s contribution to society, whether that was as in my CEO roles with Dame Kelly Holmes Trust or Groundwork, or at UK Coaching and the Sport for Development Coalition. My background is in coaching, and when you coach people you realise it’s not just about the sport, it’s about what they want to get out of life. At the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, we worked with young people who had been told they would not amount to much. We fed them, got them moving and socialising with each other, and little by little they would get fitter and their confidence would grow. All of a sudden they were feeling better mentally and physically, and we were going through this process of building that relationship with the young person, who had never experienced this before. Sometimes you would provide direction, and sometimes you’d have to know when to just create the environment for them to learn for themselves, but the end point was always for them to reach a positive destination and employment, so they could sustain themselves.
This is what really excites me about Altair, that we can act as an enabler for the sector, and help organisations to achieve much more. Coaching remains the golden thread; my role is about working with, and alongside, senior executives and leaders to find solutions to build, sustain or grow their business. We help them get their organisational processes sorted, or their Board appointed, their impact data sorted, and then their funding and partnership opportunities realised.
What are your ambitions for Altair in the sport for development sector?
It’s often said that with every crisis, there comes opportunity – and we believe there’s a huge opportunity for the sport for development sector to contribute to the health and wealth of the nation. Since the Election, the new Government has spoken openly about the financial challenges that we face, with national debt forecast to treble over the next 50 years. So at Altair, we want to talk about the potential within the fundraising landscape to provide affordable and innovative solutions for income generation. We’re ambitious about supporting commercial models which look at not just income growth but also partnership working to reduce costs and prevent duplication across the sector.
When we start working with a new client, we will ask challenging questions not only about what they do, but why, so they can really focus on their purpose. It’s great if an organisation helps participants to play sport, but what really matters is that they are in an environment which makes them feel connected and that they can feel good about themselves. It’s the depth of understanding that Altair has built around this which matters, and is driven by the fact that we want to get results. We have raised over £100million to support good causes, and that’s because it’s not simply transactional for us, we believe with our hearts as well as our heads. Some of the work we have done, through social housing projects around the world for example, has been truly transformational for those communities.
Why have you partnered with ConnectSport?
Altair has partnered with ConnectSport because both organisations believe that the sport for development sector has the capacity to truly change the mechanics around how people are being supported through sport. We are both passionate about working alongside smaller organisations, which could be capable of doing much, much more if we can help them to unlock more capacity. Our values are also aligned around ConnectSport’s focus on working with young people to tell stories. There are so many unseen charities and organisations doing amazing, much-needed work across our communities – we want to connect with them so Altair can help them to become more impactful and more sustainable, and where practicable, scale up. We’re very much aligned with how ConnectSport is trying to change that narrative.
Where do you see the sector in five or 10 years?
Sponsors are now being driven by their ESG (environmental, social, governance) commitments, and they are consistently asking about what a particular sport or project is doing for society or the environment. At Altair we introduce a national governing bodies to sport for development organisations so they can meet those ESG requirements. I’m also excited by how many movement-based offers there are now, like Her Spirit or We Are Undefeatable, which bring together organisations with common agenda. We can help those ‘movements’ that are based on a need, to grow and sustain themselves.
Ultimately if we can influence funders to not look at sport as purely the elite end and connect with the importance of embedding movement, physical literacy and sport as the golden thread across society’s challenges then I think the sector could become central to public policy, and the health and wealth of the nation. With public funding being stretched and cut back, I know from my time at the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust how charities are going to be needed to provide youth services, especially with the continued demise of local authority services. Altair is here to help more organisations step up and meet that need.
