What We Do

The Sports Philanthropy Project (SPP) works in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Childhood Obesity Team to maximize the impact that professional sports leagues, teams and athletes can have in creating healthier lifestyles for America’s youth and families.  

Our shared goal is to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity by 2015.

In 2007 RWJF pledged $500 million over five years to achieve this goal.   By focusing on the areas of our country where the risk of childhood obesity is the highest, by working to implement policy and environmental changes that encourage better nutrition, increased physical activity, by engaging partners at the local level in this effort, and by evaluating promising efforts and communicating what we learn, RWJF aims to encourage, promote and replicate model efforts that:

  1. Provide healthier foods at schools;
  2. Increase the frequency, intensity and duration of physical activity at school;
  3. Improve the availability of healthy foods at home;
  4. Improve access to safe places for play and exercise in communities; and
  5.  Reduce screen time.

At SPP we provide technical assistance and develop innovative fitness, nutrition and obesity prevention programs within the professional sports industry, to ensure that ALL of America’s children live in communities and attend schools where being physically active and eating healthy foods is the norm, not the exception. Through our decade of experience, we’ve found that it’s a natural fit and a “win-win” for sports to promote sustained and measurable efforts for children to eat well and move more.

Learn more about efforts around the nation to combat childhood obesity.


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