Helping All Children Overcome The Barriers To Sport & Play With Jumpstart’s Marco Di Buono

1Tell us about your role as the Associate Vice President of Programs & Operations for Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities. What does a typical day look like for you?

This is one of the most exciting roles in the Canadian sport landscape. The AVP Programs & Operations is responsible for the design and execution of Jumpstart’s community granting initiatives and other programs designed to help kids overcome the barriers to sport & play.

A typical day will involve listening to and learning from community organizations across the country and understanding some of the emerging challenges and/or opportunities that the sport, physical activity and recreation sector is facing.

Unique to Jumpstart, which receives the generous support of Canadian Tire Corporation and its family of companies, the AVP Programs & Operations also spends a significant amount of time engaging with internal stakeholders, many of whom provide incredible insights into the challenges and opportunities at a local, community level.

Despite our national scope, we are able to maintain a hyper-local focus in our approach to supporting sport and play because of the passion and enthusiasm of our internal stakeholders spread out across Canada.

Lastly, we have an opportunity to engage with municipal, provincial and federal leaders in sport, physical activity and recreation which enables us to deliver many of our programs in a collaborative way.

2What was the launching point for your desire to work on the diversity and inclusion side of sports?

Although Jumpstart was established in 2005 to specifically help families overcome the financial barriers to sport & play, we developed meaningful partnerships with organizations serving children with disabilities, including the Canadian Paralympic Committee, the Rick Hansen Foundation and the Abilities Centre early on.

Our work with these organizations inspired us to launch our Inclusive Play Project in 2017 – a $40M commitment from Jumpstart to address the systemic barriers faced by children with disabilities to access quality sport and physical activity.

Our collaborative and consultative approach to designing, launching and executing Jumpstart’s Inclusive Play Project served as inspiration for the way we engage all community sport and physical activity stakeholders.

As we continue to listen, learn and engage collaboratively with our grant recipients and community sport stakeholders, we continue to adapt and evolve our approach to diversity and inclusion.

This includes updating our grant evaluation criteria to expressly favor organizations and initiatives that have a firm commitment to inclusion, partnering on research and advocacy efforts such as Canadian Women in Sport’s Rally Report, and taking a participant-centred approach to program design, among others.

3What do you think are the three most important skills or attributes that an aspiring professional needs to have if they want to be successful in Programs & Operations?

Whether at Jumpstart or elsewhere one should embrace a continuous passion for learning.

Whether that is listening and learning from stakeholders, staying current on research trends, or cultivating a “test and learn” environment based on strong programmatic evaluation, it is imperative to take a data-driven approach to addressing the barriers to sport and play.

This includes searching out global examples and examples from other sectors to identify best practices.

Additionally, one needs to approach this work collaboratively and in partnership with the sport and physical activity ecosystem.

Combining the national scope of an organization like Jumpstart with continuous collaborative engagement allows one to facilitate the sharing of best practices across geographic boundaries, cultivate meaningful and sustainable partnerships, amplify the work of organizations that are generating impact, and effectively “connecting the dots” within the sport & physical activity ecosystem.

Finally, one must never forget that the most important stakeholder is the participant.

Although many of us have fond memories of our experience in sport – whether it be recreational or competitive, others will experience their journey through sport differently, and it is incredibly important to understand, respect and appreciate the lived experience of all participants if we are going to truly leverage sport and play as a way for us to become our better selves.  

4What does it mean to you to work at Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities? Can you tell us about a special moment or highlight that you have experienced in this role?

It is an absolute honour and privilege to work for an organization that embraces the values of equity, diversity and inclusion, and is supported so enthusiastically by the Canadian Tire Family of Companies and its tens of thousands of employees across Canada.

This continuously gives the Charity the resources it needs to innovate in order to meet the changing needs of communities across Canada.

In September of 2020 we announced an $8M Community Sport Relief Fund to help organizations overcome the challenges imposed by COVID-19.

Our team worked diligently to create a 5-week turnaround from the day applications opened to the day we awarded funds. I had the privilege of calling a handful of the 668 organizations across Canada that received support to let them know they would be receiving funding.

The responses were incredibly emotional, underscoring the depth of the damage that COVID-19 has inflicted on community sport. In the days following our outreach to successful applicants, our team was awash in feedback from parents and kids who would benefit from the support we provided to their communities.

We don’t often have a chance to learn with such immediacy about the impact of our work and it has fuelled us to work even harder to support the kids and families we serve through the pandemic.