The integrity of the Club Excellence Certified brand is key to its value. The mark will be comparable from sport to sport, because it is founded on a set of standards applicable to any community sport organization.

The Club Excellence Cooperative (CEC) will:

• Encourage parents, athletes, volunteers and coaches to demand Club Excellence certification when considering registration or volunteering with a club.
• Encourage parents and participants to consider the Club Excellence certification when comparing sport options in their community.
• Encourage sport participants to look for the mark and ask for accountability.

Club Excellence certification is similar to the International Standards Organization (ISO) or the Better Business Bureau (BBB), where adherence to standards is regularly reviewed by external auditors.  At this time there is only one level of the Club Excellence standard, and certified clubs must meet all of the 30 core standards.

As part of the program, Club Excellence will ensure the ongoing integrity of its brand. Because clubs use the brand to convey a message of reliability and confidence to parents and administrators, the value of the brand must be strictly guarded. If a certified club is not maintaining its adherence to the standards, it affects everyone.

Thus, it is critical to ensure that clubs are maintaining their commitment to the standards. To this end, Club Excellence will review about 5-10% of certified clubs every year, either in person or over the telephone.  Club Excellence may also launch a targeted review of a certified club based on a third party report.

Once a club has registered its intent to become certified, and while it is working through its organizational assessment, it may display the Club Excellence Candidate logo in its materials or on its website.