1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Methodology

2 Starting Points
2.1 Preliminary surveys on training needs analysis
2.2 State of the Game reports and corporate governance surveys
2.3 Supporters Direct
2.4 Questions and key issues

3 Whole Trust Training and Support Needs
3.1 Trust profiles
3.2 Board composition
3.3 Trust aims and activities
3.4 Strategies
3.5 Existing sources of support
3.6 Emerging training and support needs
  3.6.1  Membership development
  3.6.2  Trust development and governance
  3.6.3  Community involvement
3.7 Preferred learning strategies

4 Individual Board Member Training and Support Needs
4.1 Who was surveyed?
4.2 Individual member profiles
4.3 Training needs
4.4 Key barriers to training
4.5 Suitable times
4.6 Summary and conclusions for individual board members and trust boards collectively

5 Stakeholders
5.1 Objectives
5.2 Identifying and mapping stakeholders
5.3 Types of organisation
5.4 Fields of activity
5.5 Opportunities and potential for partnerships
5.6 Joint initiatives
5.7 Resources and skills stakeholders would like to see from trusts

6 Identifying the next steps - support, resources and training
6.1 Funding
6.2 Communication, networking and contacts
6.3 Joint initiatives in the community
6.4 Administration and organisation
6.5 Barriers and constraints to joint initiatives - the stakeholders' perspective
6.6 Conclusions - developing a framework for progress

7 How to finance the work of supporters' trusts
7.1. Why develop a fundraising strategy?
7.2 Delivering the trust’s objectives and social and economic policy targets
7.3 Developing fundable projects for trusts
7.4 Managing effective partnerships

8 Funding guide for the West Midlands
8.1 Community Fund
8.2 West Midlands community buildings trial programme
8.3 Community Chest
8.4 Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF)
8.5 Other sources of funding

Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by Advantage West Midlands, through the West Midlands Social Economy Partnership – regenerating the West Midland through social economy.

In order to involve participants, a Steering Group (SG) was established that meets on a quarterly basis.  Three supporters' trusts, are represented on the SG, together with a number of 'stakeholder' organisations and the project research team. A full list of contacts, the organisations they represent and the area of expertise they embody is provided in Appendix A. The survey work at the core of this phase of the project would not have been possible without the co-operation of the supporters' trusts and stakeholder organisations that took part as questionnaire respondents, and their contribution and commitment is acknowledged with thanks.

Glossary of terms
Advantage West Midlands
One of nine regional development agencies charged with developing a regional economic strategy and then ensuring its implementation in the West Midlands

Co-operative College
Provider of adult and lifelong learning programmes that emphasise co-operative values and principles and centre for training, learning, consultancy and research for the co-operative and mutual sector

FGRC, Birkbeck, University of London
Football Governance Research Centre, Birkbeck, University of London. An academic centre dedicated to the study of the corporate governance of professional football in the UK

Social economy
The term 'social economy' as used here refers to the whole of the 'not for personal profit' and mutual aid sector. Social economy organisations (or enterprises), such as trusts, may generate revenue or ‘profit’ but these monies must be spent on furthering the objectives of the organisation and cannot be distributed for personal gain. Examples include community-owned businesses, local self-help or interest groups and user/worker/marketing co-operatives. "The term is used intentionally to link in with economic thinking. It is preferred over the term 'third sector'. A social enterprise is any initiative within this sector when being seen as an enterprise, rather than as a service, a campaign, a trust or association etc." [1]

Social Enterprise
'A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximize profit for shareholders and owners.' [2]

Stakeholder
A stakeholder can be defined as "…any group, organisation or individual who can affect or is affected by the organisation's [that is, the football club's] objectives." [3] However, as such a definition is rather broad, we defined the key stakeholders as 'any group or organisation who is affected by the football club'. Using this definition, community groups and regional bodies were 'mapped' on to football club.

Supporters' trust
A supporters' trust is an organisation that embodies three principles:

·        Not-for-personal-profit
·        Community based and orientated
·        Inclusive in practice to ensure it is broadly representative of supporters in general and the wider community

Supporters Direct

The government-funded supporters' trust initiative that aims to provide legal and practical advice to supporters' groups wishing to establish a trust at the club they support. Supporters' groups are vetted to ensure their aims are 'legitimate'; these include ownership, representation and influence in the football club. In the light of the collapse of ITV Digital, Supporters Direct has been provided with additional funding to help football clubs as well as supporters' trusts.

WMSEP

West Midlands Social Economy Partnership. The social enterprise action research scheme and award granting body that is funding this work.

About the Authors

Vipin Chauhan is an independent consultant, trainer and researcher and is the Principal Partner of Lotus Management Consultancy, a practice that specialises in working with voluntary, community and public sector organisations. He has an established reputation for his work on capacity building training, mapping and scoping studies, project evaluation, youth and community work, the Black voluntary sector, Global Youth Work, regeneration, equality and diversity, social exclusion, management and organisational development. He is an Associate Tutor with the Co-operative College and an Associate Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health and Community Studies at Leicester’s De Montfort University.

Telephone 0116 251 9611
email: lotus@vipin.freeserve.co.uk

Jonathan Michie is the Sainsbury Professor of Management and Director of the Mutuality Research Centre at Birkbeck, University of London. He is directing the Advantage West Midlands project on ‘Building Sustainable Supporters’ Trusts in the West Midlands’. He is also a director of Supporters Direct, the supporters’ trusts initiative, and Chair of Shareholders United, an organisation formed to campaign for all interests (including emotional) that Manchester United supporting shareholders have in the club.

Telephone 020 7631 6761
email: j.michie@bbk.ac.uk

Christine Oughton is the Director of the Football Governance Research Centre and Head of the Department of Management at Birkbeck, University of London. Previously she was Director of the Research Centre for Industrial Strategy and Co-ordinator of Research for an EU funded project to develop a Regional Innovation Strategy for the West Midlands.

Telephone 020 7631 6768
email: c.oughton@bbk.ac.uk

Lee Shailer is a Research Officer for the Football Governance Research Centre and is enrolled on a PhD researching stakeholder models of management and ownership at football clubs. He is co-author of the 2001 and 2002 State of the Game annual reports, investigating the management challenges currently facing the football industry and researching into the standards of governance at football clubs in general.

Telephone 020 7631 6871
email: l.shailer@bbk.ac.uk

Linda Shaw is the Learning and Development Manager for the Co-operative College and has worked for many years in adult and continuing education, and more recently in international development. Her career has included a variety of roles in teaching, research and writing as well as in administration and management.

Telephone 0161 246 2926
email: linda@co-op.ac.uk

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Within the space of just two and a half years nearly two thirds of the clubs in the Football League clubs and over half of the clubs in the Premiership now have a supporters' trust up and running. The impact of these organisations on the football clubs up and down the football pyramid and across the country has been phenomenal: trusts have become powerful players in the governance and running of clubs and an emerging force in the social economy.

This Report focuses on the situation facing West Midlands trusts. Building on the foundations of existing research and ideas surrounding supporters' trusts and using the principles of action research, it identifies that trusts need further training and support, both individually as board members and collectively as organisations. The Report highlights the learning needs of trusts, to support themselves in their development, and also identifies latent demands that, through the application of best practice principles, would also promote their work and deepen their impact in the social economy.

The Report also explores the potential for trusts developing links and joint initiatives with wider community stakeholders in football clubs, and points the way forward to develop these ideas further. The research suggests that although many trusts currently have a low profile with stakeholders in the football club and much work needs to be done to raise awareness, their scope and potential remains huge. The supporters' trust is both the ideal vehicle for developing partnerships with stakeholding bodies and ideally placed as a community based organisation to make a real difference locally and become a key player in the wider social economy.

Trusts need to be focussed to be successful in developing partnerships with football clubs and wider stakeholders in the football clubs. They need to focus on tangible outcomes and results of the partnerships. Football club officials in particular indicated that they would be willing to work with trusts but would like trusts to take the initiative and be the lead body in developing ideas.

Already the process of action research has led to a joint initiative between the supporters' trust and a football club to develop a grant application to a regional funding body to use the football club as a 'community building'. A dedicated workshop is to be held to develop this particular initiative further during the summer. Other workshops will also be held during the course of the project.

The Football Governance Research Centre and the Co-operative College will be working over the next year developing training materials for trusts, responding to the feedback from this report, and piloting training materials. The overall objective is to enable trusts to realise their full potential, build partnerships and so strengthen their contribution to the social economy.