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
Paste your video code here:
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
- Login to post new content in this forum.
Comments
Hi Lynne,
Congratulations on being selected a Gamechangers finalist! What important work you are doing mentoring girls from vulnerable populations through sport. Do you have gender specific programming for girls? Have you thought about partnering with women athletes from women’s colleges?
Thanks and good luck,
The Gamechangers Judges’ Panel
Hi Cynthia,
Thanks to you and the rest of the of the judges' panel for your support!
We've found that after age 10, both boys and girls do better in single-sex sports programs. According to our model, we normally place our volunteer coaches at understaffed sports programs that are already active in local communities. Some of these are co-ed and some aren't.
We do a really thorough training for any site supervisor who will manage our volunteers so that they are well-versed in our model for youth development. The training gives us an opportunity to broach issues such as this one and help educate after-school providers about what constitutes high-quality, developmentally-appropriate sports programming. We encourage supervisors to consider single-sex programs if they're not already implementing them at their sites.
Too often, we've found that schools and community centers don't have any programming for girls at all. Of course, we know that these communities are the ones that can use our volunteer coaches the most! For these situations, we've developed a girl-specific 12-week soccer curriculum that our trained coaches can deliver. We give them soccer equipment and we organize competitive play with local teams. This programs allows a college-age woman volunteer to walk onto a middle school campus with a bag of soccer balls and deliver 12 weeks of skill-based lessons to girls that have never had the chance to play organized sports! It's a great opportunity for the girl players and it helps schools build athletic programs for girls, where no programs previously existed.
When we recruit college women to volunteer as coaches, we're looking for women who can commit to at least one season. This normally adds up to about 50 hours of service. Unfortunately, we've found that women athletes who play at the college-level just can't make that kind of time commitment. Their schedules are already so full with practices and games, in addition to academics, that it's hard for them to make an on-going commitment. Instead, we look for women who grew up playing sports-- probably competitively in high school-- but are not active in sports at the varsity college level. They have the perfect mix of athletic skill and passion that we're looking for in volunteer coaches.
However, we still see women college athletes as an invaluable resource for our program and we look for oportunities to partner with them. Each year, in conjunction with a local college campus, we host a Girls Sports Day. This event invites low-income girls to play for a day with varsity women athletes. The athletes lead sport-specific stations that the girls visit to improve their skills and sample new sports. Girl Sports Day is a great chance for girl athletes to get passionate about sports and interact with college players. It also gives them the unique opportunity to visit a college campus-- many of them for the first time. We believe the event improves their academic and athletic aspirations and allows them to imagine themselves as college students or athletes.
I hope I've answered your questions!
Best wishes,
Lynne
Team Up for Youth is an amazing orgranization and has been an influential partner of the Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative (BAWSI). Because we serve young girls and women in under-represented communities through after school physical activity programs led by volunteer women athletes, we are excited to see Team Up for Girls launch in our communities. We serve girls in 3rd-5th grades, so it is important for our girls to know that there may be an opportunity to continue their physical activity and newfound love for soccer with Team Up for Girls. Team Up for Girls is a natural extension of the life lessons we teach through sport and physical activity and is especially critical for the target age group.
Congrats and best of luck!
Susan Armenta
Program Director, BAWSI Salud Por Vida
Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative
Hi Susan,
Thanks for all the words of support! We so appreciate our partnership with BAWSI! It's an honor to work with your organization to make a difference for girl athletes in the South Bay.
I hope to see you at the Giants game on May 30th!
Lynne
Dear Lynn-
Congratulations on your great programme. I would be very interested in seeing the report you helped create with the TUCKER center. We also do work with girls from low income communities and would love to see the research.
Heather Cameron
Executive Director
Boxgirls International
Professor - Freie Universitaet Berlin
cameron@boxgirls.org
Hi Heather,
Congratulations to you, as well, for making it to the final round!
I'd be happy to add you to our distribution list so that you receive a copy of the report that we're doing with the TUCKER center, when it's ready later this year. In the mean time, I'll send you a report that we did called Learning to Play and Playing to Learn-- which studies the connection between academic outcomes and sports participation for low-income children. We released it earlier this year and it's part of the same series as the TUCKER center paper.
Best wishes,
Lynne
Post new comment