Sport can be a powerful catalyst for individual and local development, and an effective lever for addressing complex community challenges. The preamble to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognises this role clearly:
“Sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development. We recognize the growing contribution of sport to the realization of development and peace in its promotion of tolerance and respect and the contributions it makes to the empowerment of women and of young people, individuals and communities as well as to health, education and social inclusion objectives”.
Across Europe, community foundations are investing in sport and sporting facilities as a strategy for strengthen individuals’ agency, particularly among young people, while fostering community building, and participation.
Sport as a driver of youth agency
The Fondazione di Comunità San Gennaro uses sport as a powerful lever to strengthen youth agency in Naples’ Rione Sanità, particularly through Casa Cristallini (Cristallini 73), a community hub created by reclaiming abandoned spaces and turning them into shared assets for the neighborhood. Within Casa Cristallini, the boxing gym is not conceived simply as a place for training, but as a space where young people can build confidence, self-discipline, and a sense of responsibility toward themselves and others. The decision of setting up the gym itself comes from a two-years participatory process with young people in the neighbourhood who were asked: “What would you like to do with the space? And why?”
Through free access to boxing and martial arts activities, developed in partnership with institutions such as the Fiamme Oro sports group, young participants are encouraged to set goals, commit to a routine, and experience achievement in a collective and supportive environment. In this context, sport becomes a tool for empowerment: young people are not passive beneficiaries, but active protagonists who develop leadership skills, resilience, and the capacity to imagine alternative life paths, contributing to the social regeneration of their own community.
Sport as a community engagement tool and fundraising lever
In Romania, community foundations have turned mass-participation sports into some of their most powerful “community engines,” combining friendly competition with community-based fundraising for local causes. Swimathon București, organised by Fundația Comunitară București, bring swimmers, teams, companies, and donors together around community-selected projects; across 12 editions it has supported over 290 projects and mobilized over €1.5M in donations from tens of thousands of supporters.
In Oradea, Swimathon , organised by Fundația Comunitară Oradea, has become a civic gathering point as much as a fundraiser: its 2025 edition filled the stands with over 1,200 people, showing how the “event day” turns giving into a shared local celebration. From water to land: Maratonul Internațional Sibiu, organised by Fundația Comunitară Sibiu, works as a platform where runners pick a cause, fundraise with a personal page, and mobilise their networks; in 2024 the marathon financed 51 projects with 1,336,124 lei raised, illustrating how participation fees plus personal fundraising can scale community investment.
And on two wheels, Bikeathon Țara Făgărașului , by Fundația Comunitară Țara Făgărașului, explicitly links “kilometers pedaled” to local giving. It is an outdoor, family-friendly event that makes donating visible, social, and rooted in place.
Supporting local clubs as civic hubs and development driver
With young people harshly impacted by the series of lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2021 UK Community Foundations partnered with Made By Sport to launch the “Clubs In Crisis” fund, targeting grassroots clubs and organisations that use sports to support young people’s wellbeing, life skills, and recovery post-pandemic. Through this initiative, community foundations distributed unrestricted grants (e.g., around £2,021 per club) to groups focused on using sport as a social development tool rather than solely for competitive participation. This helped sustain local sports clubs in delivering life skills, encouraging teamwork and communication, and tackling social challenges in their communities.
Sport as driver for community cohesion
PeacePlayers Northern Ireland was created, with the support of Community Foundation Northern Ireland, with the goal of using basketball as a tool for reconciliation and peace-building in a region that had been deeply divided by years of conflict. Its mission is to unite and empower young people from all parts of the community through the shared experience of sport, and to promote understanding and respect.
Over the past 22 years, it has reached thousands of young people from both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds, providing them with the opportunity to play basketball together and form friendships across the traditional divide.
