Case Study: Cricket Victoria

Social Impact, Shared Value, Outcomes Measurement
Improving Social Outcomes through Community Cricket

Cricket is more than a game - it brings communities together and even helps address social issues at a local level. Measuring and focusing on social outcomes is leading to an even greater impact on the community.

Working with the team at Latitude has been so important to us at Cricket Victoria.   We understand that community lead decision making is best practice and it was as a result of the expertise and leadership from Latitude that we were able to create a framework and process that enables the alignment of cricket’s core inclusion work with the actual needs of the local community.  The framework helps us to identify and support the specific needs of clubs and thus invest purposefully.” 

Emma Staples 
Head of Participation, Community Development & Diversity
Cricket Victoria 

SOCIAL ISSUE 

Cricket, and the local cricket club, is at the heart of hundreds of communities across Victoria. Growing participation numbers are a positive sign that cricket plays an important community role,  transcending age, gender, race and ability. However the impact cricket has on the local community is largely undefined, and often it's potential is often untapped.

CLIENT CHALLENGE  

Cricket Victoria - one of Victoria's leading sporting organisations - intrinsically knew that cricket connects communities and improves lives by bringing people together. It was clear that cricket delivered mental, physical and cultural benefits, positively shaping the lives of the individuals and communities involved. 

However, Cricket Victoria wanted to know ‘How can we measure and enhance our social impact through the cricket experience?’. And, ‘How can we be more targeted and deliberate in the impact we deliver locally’?

Cricket Vic also recognised that the needs and issues important to the community varies across the thousands of cricket clubs across the state. Any system for improving social impact would therefore need to be:

• Adaptable - to a local context;
• Simple - to allow clubs to implement themselves;
• Repeatable - so that it could be expanded across the state; and 
• Meaningful - to deliver real social impact. 

THE ROLE LATITUDE NETWORK PLAYED 
 
This project was delivered over two key stages: the first focused on understanding the needs of local clubs, communities and the types of social and health issues that clubs could realistically engage with. It delivered a frame and a method that Cricket Vic could use to help clubs enhance their social impact using participation as the main tool. The second stage (ongoing through 2020-21) is piloting the process (known as the Community Outcomes Framework) by working with clubs themselves to co-design initiatives to identify and address local needs and using data to measure the impact.

IMPACT 

Latitude Network has built a Community Impact Framework for Cricket Victoria that, once tested, will enable cricket clubs right around Victoria to identify and address important social issues within the community using participation as the key tool. We continue to work with Cricket Vic and clubs in stage 2 (2020-21) to co-design local impact initiatives and use data to  monitor and evidence the effect during the club cricket season.