SE1157 Evaluation, Learning and Innovation partner for Sport England’s Open Fund

Sport England is inviting interested suppliers to attend an online session to hear about, discuss and inform a forthcoming procurement for an evaluation, learning and innovation partner for its new Open Fund. The contract value is estimated at up to £2.5m over 4-5 years.

The Open Fund is a new four-year funding programme that will launch in April 2024. The £160m fund will invest in and support thousands of organisations and projects to deliver grassroots sport and physical activity across the whole of England as part of Uniting the Movement. It is being designed to meet the needs of communities, organisations and stakeholders not covered by Sport England’s existing investments into Partners, Place and Campaigns. Most Open Fund investments will be less than £50k and will go towards a wide variety of local community organisations and projects. It will also include an expansion of our crowdfunding programme Active Together, and over time expand to be able to support a small number of larger national strategic investments.

Sport England is designing the Open Fund as a new user-led ‘service’ which aims to move the investment process closer to communities. This includes commitments to:

• Provide a simple, easy and accessible application process, including improved information and tools
• Favour those people and communities where the need is greatest
• Allocate portions of the Fund to local ‘Investment partners’ to help manage and distribute
• Follow an Investment Charter based around user-led principles and comprehensive user and stakeholder feedback
• Be driven by our values: Ambitious, Innovative, Inclusive and Collaborative
• Proportionate evaluation and learning that is valued by all parties

We want to procure a supplier – or consortium of suppliers – to help us measure and evaluate the contribution of the Open Fund to the four strategic aims of Uniting the Movement, learn about what is working including how Sport England administers the Fund, and support the evolution and development of the Fund including an explicit focus on innovation.

Interested suppliers can book to attend an open session with the Sport England project team, taking place from 2-3pm on Wednesday 17th January 2024 over MS Teams. This will be an opportunity for you to find out more about the forthcoming procurement, provide feedback and ask questions about the work, and meet other suppliers who may wish to collaborate. We will use the sessions to help us finalise the brief. You can book onto the session here:

events.teams.microsoft.com/event/e775c32a-f72c-… ↗