"Women's sports is still in its infancy. The beginning of women's sports in the United States started in 1972, with the passage of Title 9 for girls to finally get athletic scholarships." - Billie Jean King
The Problem
Soccer Without Borders USA serves refugee and immigrant girls from 33 countries, most of whom are playing on their first-ever sports team. Despite dedicated efforts to address barriers to access, boys join SWB at a rate three times that of girls, and girls represent just 31% of registered participants.
Reaching gender balance in SWB USA programs requires a unified effort to apply a gender lens across all aspects of program design, delivery, and resources.
Global Goal 5 Accelerator
The Global Goal 5 Accelerator advances gender equality on the pitch, on the sidelines, in organizations, and in the media. Created in partnership with Common Goal and Women Win, each accelerator brings together a cohort of sport-for-development organizations and coaches to build girls’ participation, advance pipelines and pathways for female coaches, elevate female leaders, and change perceptions in our communities. Together, these actions contribute toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 which is to "Advance Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls."
The Opportunity: USA Global Goal 5 Accelerator
This Accelerator was made possible by financial support from Together Rising and the Bettinger Family.
November 2020 - July 2021
Accelerator process
The USA Accelerator worked with coaches and program leaders at the "On the Pitch" level, with a focus on increasing girls' participation, engagement, and leadership and building safe program spaces for girls. It also included leadership development opportunities for the cohort members themselves, aiming to expand pathways to increase the number of women coaches in Soccer Without Borders. The Accelerator took place in three phases: Launch and Formation, Implementation, and Results and Learning.
"National data tells us that from middle school to high school years, there's a precipitous drop in the number of girls who play sport. We see this happening at SWB USA programs too. Building and sustaining a high school girls' team of newcomer girls is harder than building any other team. It requires thousands of actions small and big, seen and unseen, and is the work of everyone in the community." - Lindsey Whitford, SWB Managing Director of Programs & Accelerator Facilitator
Phase 1: Launch & Formation
After forming the cohort and building a level of common understanding and trust, every cohort member then rates their girls' program- whether that is a single team, a site, or a whole program- using a self-assessment tool. This process-oriented tool names 32 specific targets across 8 categories, with each target rated on a 1-5 scale .
Self-Assessment Categories and Target Areas
BASELINE Self-Assessment results
After the initial assessment, cohort members work with facilitators to analyze their results, identifying strengths and areas of focus for their program. The average scores are also analyzed across the cohort as a whole, to identify common challenges to become the topics for professional development workshops.
Gender action plans
From this analysis, each cohort member then creates their own Gender Action Plan (GAP) to move forward in the identified areas of focus, turning scores of 2s into 3s, 3s into 4s, and so on. Every Gender Action Plan has its own Impact Goal and is tailored to its program's unique needs and context.
“The self-assessment was a whole new experience and very helpful in creating short-term goals for improving girls’ access to programming, inclusion, and engagement. The creation of the Gender Action Plan opened our minds to a larger goal of making SWB Maryland a hub for girls’ sports. As a cohort, it was good for us to create our own plans and then come together to share ideas of what else might work at our individual programs.” - Kat Sipes & Erin O'Brien, SWB Maryland
Phase 2: Implementation
Gender Action plan spotlight: boston
SWB Boston Program Coordinator Caitlin Saupe's Gender Action Plan aimed to increase peer leadership and girls’ recruitment for her middle and high school programs. She created a formal captainship program for each of her teams, with trainings that allowed girls to learn their own leadership styles, lead practices, and set goals for their teams. They also took ownership of recruitment, leading efforts to invite new girls from the East Boston community.
Results
- High school girls participation increased from 18 girls to 35 and average daily attendance increased by 66%
- Middle school girls grew to 57 participants with a 225% increase in average attendance
- The girls' leadership program now reaches over 40 middle and high school girls
- In its endline assessment, SWB Boston improved in 88% of Accelerator target areas, including a significant growth in community engagement, girls’ leadership, and girls’ recruitment.
"Being captain in SWB is to help out your community and I love being a leader, because not only do I make a change, but it helps me become a stronger person too." - Alex, SWB Boston captain
Gender Action Plan Spotlight: Oakland
In addition to their individual Gender Action Plans, SWB Oakland coaches Maddy Boston, Sophie Goethals, and Mackenzie Kingston created a joint action plan focused on strengthening connectivity across their different teams. Their goal? To launch a "Goal Five League", creating parity with the existing SWB Oakland Champions League for boys' teams.
Results
- New pop-up changing rooms at practices and games
- Increased leadership opportunities for high school girls to coach, including supporting 4 graduates to coach at the Eat. Play. Learn. Foundation's summer sports camp
- Girls participation increased 61% at SWB Oakland, from 62 girls to 100
- The brand new Castlemont High School team grew from eight players to 20
- In Fall 2021, the Goal 5 League launched with 7 teams
- In its endline assessment, SWB Oakland’s improved in 75% of Accelerator target areas, with significant increases in scores for facilities and community engagement.
“My favorite part of the whole day was when we created the teams and started playing. One thing I learned was to socialize with people I don't know. I was very proud when I started talking to other girls who were not from my school and felt included in everything." - Heykee, Castlemont High School participant
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Cohort members participated in a series of learning workshops to address the most common challenges across all programs. Accelerator facilitators led workshops on: recruitment strategies, implementing all-gender programming, and understanding exits, and Women Win served as guest facilitators for a workshop on servant leadership.
Through the Accelerator, SWB USA programs increased:
- Number of girls served
- Girls’ engagement including attendance and retention
- Proportion of participants who are girls
- Number of female coaches
- Female participant to coach pathways
- Financial and material investments in girls programming
- Volume of girls-specific coach training curricula
- Visibility of girls’ programs in organizational communications
"In every context where I've played, coached, or built girls' programs, I've witnessed first hand the power of 'If she can see it, she can be it.' The work of achieving gender equality looks like every action by every day coaches and leaders doing their part and passing the torch to the next generation." - Mary Connor, SWB Co-Founder
Post-Accelerator Self-Assessment Gains
Overall, the SWB USA Cohort logged improvements in all eight categories, with the greatest improvement in the three categories that initially scored lowest: Girls Leadership, Recruitment, and Community Engagement.
"Last year’s Accelerator directly connects to the launch of Oakland’s Goal 5 League this fall....changing our program design to better support our girl participants. I ranked “Appropriate level Competition” as a pretty low score in the Self-Assessment rubric. We knew appropriate game competition was such an important factor in the health of a SWB girls’ program, and we felt empowered to make big programming changes based on what we saw, creating the best game day experience for our girls teams." - Maddy Boston, SWB Oakland
SOCIal-EMOTIONAL LEARNING SKILLS
During the same time period, participants coached by Accelerator cohort members made greater gains compared to SWB participants as a whole in all of the following skills:
"I meet my friends , we play soccer, we laugh enjoy, and also I was put into a leadership group so being part of that made me happy this season." - Annette, SWB Baltimore participant
LESSONS LEARNED
In the closing reflection, cohort members discussed their personal triumphs and challenges, and shared key lessons learned:
- Be Realistic: Doing fewer things and doing them well is more effective than trying to do too much.
- Be Flexible: Make sure Gender Action Plans are adaptable and change course as needed.
- Safe Spaces: Female-only spaces (including coaches, volunteers, captains) are a source of confidence and safety for participants.
- Share Power: Allow girls, partners, and volunteers to take ownership, collaborating to shape an effective girls’ program.
Reflection: The Wall of Wins
In the closing reflection, cohort members also celebrated planned and unplanned wins that they experienced and witnessed throughout the Accelerator. Some highlights from their virtual post-its include:
Global Goal 5: What's Next?
As of October 2021, Soccer Without Borders has led and supported the Accelerator design, tools, and approach to be put into action in East Africa, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, engaging over 25 organizations and 100 female coaches across 22 countries. This work falls under Soccer Without Borders' Girls in the Game Initiative. Learn more about the initiative and the East Africa Accelerator in the videos below.