Success Story German Athletics Association

edubreak^®COMMUNITY in der athletics

Communication pathways

The German Athletics Association (DLV) has been relying on our community solution for its DLV Campus since 2023. At the start of the project, Dr. Kristin Behrens, Senior Manager of Sports Development at the DLV, shared the reasons for introducing its own community network and, in the second part of our interview, looked back on the success factors and lessons learned.

The path to a vibrant online community

DLV Standing Conference 2022: Development of a concrete community idea with the DLV team
April 2023: Presentation of a prototype & feedback loops with the state associations
Juni 2023: Further development and processing of feedback from the state associations and the steering group
September 2023: Final check of the structures & initial content of the community
Oktober 2023: Opening of the campus for representatives of the state associations

Why the DLV relies on online communities

Senior Manager of Sports Development, Dr. Kristin Behrens, shares in the video why the DLV chose edubreak®COMMUNITY in 2022 and what goals the DLV is pursuing in the context of community building.

Associations need exchange and networking

Interview with Dr. Kristin Behrens, Senior Manager of Sports Development at the German Athletics Association, in early 2024 on the DLV’s experiences since the introduction.

Why do sports associations need an online community?

Online communities are essential for shaping the future of sport and have become indispensable in our digital and complex world. High-quality exchange and the availability of knowledge not only make us better in our daily work and conserve resources, but also allow us to grow into learning organizations with a long-term perspective. Sports organizations have an incredible amount of collective knowledge that can be activated through well-designed online communities. This not only makes us better in our decisions, but also faster.

How can effective communication with the regional associations be achieved?

The idea we associate with the DLV Campus highlights important conditions for successful communication. In the future, the DLV Campus will be our hub for exchange, participation management, and network and communication development between the state associations and the DLV. We want to share the idea that communication can only work together if we promote the highest possible transfer of knowledge within our network and act as a team.

Rules for good communication are essential.

Good communication is not just about conveying information, but also about engaging in dialogue that takes multiple perspectives into account and shows appreciation. Trust and transparency, as well as acceptance of different opinions, are important prerequisites for good communication. We have therefore established “rules of the game” on campus that reflect our values in athletics.

This is what the DLV recommends to other associations for introducing an online community

An online community should be developed together with the community: only with good participation management is it possible to develop a platform that is widely accepted from the outset and does not fail to meet needs.
It is important to provide guidance: the advantages and added value should be clearly highlighted, but the differences from existing platforms must also be made clear. This is an important point for the DLV, for example, which the association wants to push forward in 2024 as part of its community development.

An intuitive, self-explanatory structure and organization of topics, combined with clear roles and responsibilities, are also important basic requirements. It is important to note that not everyone needs to know everything, as this is impossible and would bring communities to a standstill because the wealth of information cannot be processed. It is crucial that key information reaches the right people at the right time.

With a community, we avoid communication bottlenecks.

It is therefore a balancing act between general knowledge available to the network in order to better classify decisions and enable transfer effects in one’s own area of responsibility, while at the same time providing subject matter experts with sufficient depth of information and room for discussion. Figuratively speaking, this means that we should identify and avoid bottlenecks in communication, but it is also important that network activities do not come to a standstill due to information overload and communication.