Team-Up for Girls
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Gamechangers: Change the Game for Women in Sport competition.
Team-Up for Girls empowers college-age women to volunteer their time as coaches and role models for girls in low-income communities in California.
About You
Contact Information
Title
Ms.
First name
Lynne
Last name
Lee
Your job title
Associate Director
Name of your organization
Team-Up for Youth
Organization type
Non-profit
Annual budget/currency
$3.4 Million
Mailing address
310 8th Street, Suite 300
Oakland, CA 94607
Telephone number
(510) 663-9200
F-a-x number
Country
United States
Email address
Alternative email address
This field has not been completed
Location
Project Street Address
310 8th Street, Suite 300
Project City
Oakland
Project Province/State
CA
Project Postal/Zip Code
94607
Project Country
United States
Your idea
Choose your sport: (check all that apply)
Other
If you chose "other" for Sport, please define in 1-2 words below
All of the above
What approach does your initiative incorporate?
Services
Year the initiative began (yyyy)
2002
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If your project has a website, paste the web address here:
Plot your innovation within the discovery framework:
Barrier
Perception shapes the future
Insight
Visibility multiplies participation
This field has not been completed.
Name Your Project
Team-Up for Girls
Describe Your Idea
Team-Up for Girls empowers college-age women to volunteer their time as coaches and role models for girls in low-income communities in California.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Team-Up for Girls empowers college-age women to volunteer their time as coaches and role models for girls in low-income communities in California.
How many people does your innovation serve or plan to serve? Exactly who will benefit?
In the first two years, Team-Up for Girls will recruit 750 new women coaches to lead sports teams in low-income neighborhoods. Many of these new coaches will be women of color who are currently enrolled as college students. We will give them the training and support they need to be successful leaders for their teams.
We estimate that each of these coaches will touch the lives of at least 10 girl athletes. Together, they'll reach an incredible 7,500 girls in urban areas of California.
Do you have any existing partnerships? If so, please list and describe.
We work with universities throughout California and after-school programs in low-income neighborhoods to connect enthusiastic volunteer coaches—especially women—with programs that need their support. Our partners include UC Berkeley, California State Universities, Stanford University, and community colleges. We are excited to bring our program to the University of Southern California in 2009! We partner with over 120 programs that offer sports for low-income youth. Our coaches teach every sport varying from traditional sports like softball to lesser known ones like futsal. In addition to placing coaches, we develop organizations' commitment to girl athletes and their awareness of gender inequities in low-income sports programs.
We also partner with high-profile teams to bring attention to the power of women coaches to affect change in the lives of low-income girl athletes. Current partners include the San Francisco Giants, the Cal Womens' Basketball Team, and Stanford University.
In which sector do these partners work? (Check all that apply)
Citizen sector (non profits, NGOs) .
How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
Team-Up for Girls is a special initiative of our Coaching Corps program which recruits, trains, and places volunteer coaches at after-school programs in low-income neighborhoods. The majority of our volunteers are college-age women who are as passionate about kids as they are about sports. We give them the training and resources they need to be successful leaders for their teams and beyond. Through online social media such as Facebook and Twitter, we foster an active community for women coaches to discuss best practices.
To complement our recruitment efforts, we will launch a bilingual, public campaign to change social norms about women and girls in sports. Through local media strategies, we will educate parents about the academic and health benefits that sports can deliver and the potential for women coaches to be role models for their daughters. In partnership with high-profile teams and coaches, our public events will bring much needed attention to women and girls in sports.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact
Team-Up for Girls will recruit hundreds of new women coaches in California who are committed to changing the lives of girls through sports!
What does impact/success look like? Please list any tangible measures of the impact of your innovation
Team-Up for Girls will recruit 750 new women coaches by 2011. These women will foster supportive athletic environments where girls are inspired to get into the game—regardless of experience or natural ability. By training and placing hundreds of committed coaches, we will impact thousands of girls and give them the potential to incorporate athletics into their self-identity. With the mentorship of women coaches, these girls will build healthy bodies, develop strong minds, and make smarter decisions about their futures.
In addition, we will work to build a field for girls' sports in California. We will provide technical assistance to after-school programs so that their programs are designed with girls in mind. We will give parents the message that their daughters are more likely to succeed if they are encouraged to play sports. Finally, we will educate policymakers on the importance of girls' sports and concrete ways that they can take a stand for gender equity in our society.
Is there a chance that your project could change policy (within an institution or government)?
The new presidential administration is intensely focused on increasing civic involvement and creating new opportunities for Americans to serve their communities. Team-Up for Girls offers a blueprint for how to engage more college students in meaningful service opportunities that dramatically improve the lives of the young people they serve—on and off the playing field. Our campaign will educate policymakers about the value of coaching as a mentorship activity and the critical impact that sports can have on communities. We will use policy levers on federal, state, and local levels so that sports programs and volunteer coaches can access new funding streams for community service.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow the initiative or expand your intended impact?
Team-Up for Girls is a multi-year initiative to engage low-income girls in sports by recruiting more women coaches through our successful Coaching Corps program. While we have been committed to girls since our inception in 2002, in coming years we will focus even closer on girls and coaching. We will intensify our efforts for girls in Northern California – where we are already present – and scale up statewide in 2009, creating model programs that national partners could use in years to come.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
Our 2009 Funding Sources include Rogers Family Fdn., Jay & Rose Phillips Family Fdn., Hewlett Fdn, Koret Fdn., Haas Jr. Fund, Foss Fdn., Barnum Charitable Trust, U.C. Berkeley Community Grants, and David B. Gold Fdn. among other foundations. We also receive support from individual donors and our committed Board of Trustees. In-kind support includes the services of experts in media relations who we have engaged to develop our girls media campaign and help scale up our Coaching Corps program, as well as from sports teams including the SF Giants and the Cal Women's Basketball Team.
Financing source
Annual budget
$850,000
Annual revenue generated
Fundraising is underway and we will generate $850,000 annually to match the budget.
Number of staff (full-time, part-time, volunteers)
5 FTE staff, 325 volunteer coaches
What are the main barriers to financing your initiative, and how do you plan to address these barriers?
The economy is directly impacting our fundraising and the communities we serve are being hit hardest—our help is needed now more than ever. Coaches and sports programs are often the first place to cut funding because there is not enough awareness of the importance of sports for low-income girls and the lack of opportunities available. Our scheduled public events will educate policymakers, engage individual donors, and build visibility for this issue, in order to support our fundraising efforts.
What are the major challenges with regards to partnerships?
Our major challenge is finding structured programs since girls' programs often lack the rigor of the programming available to boys. Many programs are drop-in and are not focused on skill-building through consistent participation. We believe that more organized programs with high expectations provide environments where girls can thrive and truly learn life lessons through sports. Placing women coaches who are passionate about sports can improve the structure and quality of a girls' program.
The Story
What stage is your project?
Ongoing project .
What was the motivation or defining moment that led to create this innovation? Tell us the story.
Our experience with youth sports programs has taught us that there is a serious dearth of volunteer coaches—particularly women—in low-income communities. In these neighborhoods, parents often don't have the free time or the flexible work schedules required to commit to on-going volunteer work. We also know that there are scores of motivated college students who seek meaningful volunteer experiences in their communities. College women, in particular, have a track record in giving back through volunteering to important causes, like mentoring youth.
Team-Up for Girls connects the need with the solution: we match committed and trained women volunteer coaches with the after-school programs and girls in low-income communities that need them. Coaching offers these women an opportunity to connect with youth, develop their abilities as leaders, and explore career paths that complement their passion for public service.
The impact they have on the girl athletes they coach is phenomenal! A woman coach is often the determining factor in whether or not a girl enrolls in a sports program and stays involved through adolescence, thereby reaping the benefits of long-term participation in sports. Unfortunately, women coaches only make up 10 – 15% of the youth sports coaches in America. Team-Up for Girls seeks to break down this long-standing barrier to true equity in sports by recruiting 750 new women coaches in the first 2 years so that girls everywhere can get into the game!
Please tell us about the social innovator behind this initiative
Lynne Lee, Associate Director of Team-Up for Youth, is passionate about gender equity and creating opportunities for girls through sports. She brings her expertise on social norm change and public education to the Team-Up for Girls initiative. Previously, Lynne served at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, where she created "Coaching Boys into Men"—a media campaign which invites male coaches to be part of the solution by teaching their players that violence never equals strength.
(Optional) To be eligible for an additional prize, please select age range
13 or younger
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Comments
Hello Lee,
I'm wondering what kind of training the volunteers receive. Is it a training on sports skills or does it involve other type of women empowerment workshops?
Your "multiply-effect" is interesting. Do you see it replicated in other countries?
Women Win would love to hear your stories (successful, challenging) and the progress of your project.
Women Win is the first ever international women’s fund that supports sport and physical activities as instruments for social change and women’s empowerment.
Women Win will use the competition to find a fellow between the ages of 15 and 65 years old that positively change the lives of women and girls in their community through sports.
Join the group by going to http://sportforchange.changemakers.com/en-us/group/womenwin. Click at join the group.
Participate on the debates going to the groups page and clicking at Topics being discussed.
Good Luck!
Hi Renata,
All of our volunteer coaches receive 2 full days of training in the principles of sports-based youth development. On the first day, they learn the Building Blocks for Quality Youth Sports, which is the model we've developed to identify the elements of high-quality youth sports program. They learn how to apply the Building Blocks to design great drills and practices for their teams. On the second day of training, volunteers learn behavior management skills and how to foster positive group dynamics. They also learn how to work with diverse populations of athletes and the specific needs of girl players!
If you're interested in learning more about our model, I'd encourage you to check out our website. In particular, you may want to look at our Building Blocks-- which are posted on the Resources page of our site: http://www.teamupforyouth.org/ourwork/resources/
There's definitely potential for our program to be replicated in other countries. So far, we've focused our work in Northern California but, we plan to expand to Southern Califonia by the end of 2009.
Thanks for your comment!
Lynne Lee
This is great info. I participated as a coach in the NIKE PLAYCORPS program as a college student, and your program seems very similar. I know some areas were able to sustain the program but on a much smaller scale once the funding ran out. Looks like you have built a system to keep the funding stream open.
A thought with respect to the development of coaches may be to add an online forum with which coaches can connect with each other. A forum in which they can report challenges they face with feedback from colleagues or your team on strategies to overcome and improve. It would also be another level of the program in which these college students can also partake in another phase of development by offering professionals in the workplace the opportunity to speak to coaches about transition from college athlete to the working environment and how skills transfer.
Hi Hoopsgal,
Thanks for your post and thanks for the great ideas! I'd love to hear more about how the skills you learned through coaching translated to the work environment after you finished college.
In the past, we hosted an online forum for coaches to network and share best practices. We did it through our own website and coaches from our programs could log-in to participate.
These days there are so many more great social networking tools out there! We've begun using sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter-- sites that our coaches use all the time anyway-- to create an online community for our coaches. It seems to be working!
Lynne
Team-Up for Girls changes the lives of girls left behind by Title IX -- inner city and mostly minority girls who have don't have the facilities, the coaches and often the parental support that suburban girls enjoy. Team-Up for Girls does the challenging work of changing the landscape of neighborhoods by improving facilities, working with community leaders and sending in trained, caring coaches so that ALL girls benefit from the transformative experience of participating in sports.
Thanks for your comment, Joan! We love having your support.
Lynne
Hello Lynne, Its great to have you in the competition! It sounds like you're having excellent impact and I love the campaign, building a field and replication components of your work! Fantastic work engaging college students. I know from personal experience that this is not always an easy task. Clearly you're "blueprint" is a good one!
You mention that you will educate policymakers on the importance of girls' sports and how they can take a stand. Could you please expand upon how exactly you would do this? Have you already started this effort? Do you have existing partnerships or relationships with policy makers? What, if any, have been the outcomes thus far?
You mention, as a desired outcome, coaches having easier access to funding streams for community service. Do you know of any other organizations that are working on this that you could partner with?
Lastly, could you share with us a story about the impact that your work is having on the young women that participate?
Thank you and keep up the great work! Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
Hi Dana,
Thanks for your post! I'm happy to share some more details about how we help policymakers take a stand for girls' sports.
On the state level, we continue to work on the implementation of AB2404, which mandates gender equity at facilities run by local community centers and park and recreation departments in the state of California.
On the federal level, we are working to promote HR6, a piece of legislation introduced a few weeks ago by Congressman Mike McIntrye that calls for a National Coaches' Appreciation Week in September. We are reaching out to the California delegation to Congress, the members of the Congressional Youth Sports Caucus, and the members of the House Education and Labor Committee which is considering the legislation, to educate them about the importance of coaching, especially for girls.
In the spring we will release a report that we created with the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport. The report examines barriers and benefits to participation in sports for low-income girls and will contain recommendations for policy, research, and practice. We will distribute this paper to lawmakers, such as the ones mentioned above. We also plan to coordinate site visits to community-based girls' sports programs so that state and federal legislators in the Bay Area and their staff can see firsthand the power of sports for girls.
We are excited and motivated by President Obama's commitment to creating a culture of public service. His administration will initiate a range of national service corps, modeled on successful programs such as AmeriCorps. Our program could be scaled up on a national level to funnel even greater numbers of college students - particularly women- into volunteer coaching positions that fit President Obama's vibrant vision for public service. There is already congressional interest in youth sports and there are organizations such as America's Promise and City Year that are focused on expanding service opportunities. As we advance our work, we will seek partners, such as these, who are experienced in the realm of national service.
In regards to your final question, we have noticed that the college women who participate as coaches in our program are inspired to explore careers such as teaching, youth work, and other professions that allow them to engage with young people and make a difference in their communities. At the same time, they improve their self-confidence and develop their abilities as leaders-- both of which are important skills which will translate into other aspects of their lives.
Thanks again for your questions!
Best wishes,
Lynne
Team-Up for Girls supports girls of color living in urban neighborhoods to transform their lives and sense of self through participating in organized sports. By providing trained coaches, resources and access to sports programs, Team-Up for Girls helps ensure equity and access to structured youth development programming for all girls.
WRIGHTDA,
Thanks for participating on this site and supporting our cause!
Lynne
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