Risk Management Update

Published June 19, 2012

This post provides an update on some exciting risk management initiatives that have occurred over the past year.

Risk Management Impact on Performance

Please see this briefing document which outlines the results of Brock University’s research into the impact of the risk management workshop on participants’ performance. We have been collecting data on organizational (NSO) performance since 2010 and some of the early findings are presented in the briefing. If you are looking to make a case to your Board, funders, or partners as to the importance of managing risk, this article might help you do so. This is research conducted on Canadian NSOs that have been participating in the Risk Management Project since 2010 but also takes into account the evaluation interviews I did last year with many NSO leaders. As we move forward, we will continue to collect data as part of a longitudinal study on building capacity within Canadian Sport.

Phase 5 of the Risk Management Project (2012-2013)

We are very excited to announce continued work in this area with 5 more NSOs/ MSOs. These are: Football, Canadian Paralympic Committee, Freestyle Skiing, Basketball, and Canada Games. If your organizations has ideas to share or examples of great practices, please send them my way as I collect all of these stories and share them during our workshops.

Risk Management Resources

We are very pleased to share the Risk Management Program that was created by True Sport and the Sport Law & Strategy Group, with the support of Gymnastics Canada, Cycling Canada and Synchro Canada. The Program is meant to be a sample approach that might help NSOs that are looking to integrate their risk management efforts in a consolidated document. We encourage you to review this great resource and to find ways to customize it to your NSO's needs. A special thanks to JP Caron, Greg Mathieu, and Catherine Gosselin-Desprès for their significant contribution to the Program.

We have also created a How to Implement Risk Management guide based on your feedback last year. We know that many of you have asked for some practical guidance on which risk management practices you should engage in first.

Finally, you may want to review the resources available to you in the area of risk management from Imagine Canada’s website or the Nonprofit Risk Management Center website. Each of these sites has tons of ideas and practical resources that you can adapt.

Management by Values

Some of you may be familiar with my work on Management by Values. Increasingly, we are seeing a much greater connection between managing risk and managing by values. I collaborated with Brock University and the University of Florida on the first ever study of the impact of values on an NSO's performance. We will be publishing the results of our research shortly as well as the case study of one NSO that was found to be managing by values in an intentional manner.

In addition, Skate Canada has been working with True Sport to invest in their Provincial and Territorial Sections' ability to manage by values. Over the past 18 months, we have been working with two PSOs (Sections) to help them identify and define their values, find ways to embed them more intentionally within their organizations, and to evaluate the impact of doing so. The results have been incredibly favourable with other Sections now wanting to follow the same path.

Please let me know if you are interested in learning more about this workshop, its impact, and future opportunities.

Public expression of your commitment to True Sport

Many NSOs have now declared their commitment to True Sport and this national movement is increasingly gaining momentum at all levels of the sport spectrum.

Skate Canada has posted the True Sport brand on one of their rink boards and we applaud their public support of values-based sport and such an explicit expression of their commitment to True Sport.

How might your NSO connect to this national movement? What impact do you think this might have on your culture? How does this help you manage risks more effectively?