Sponsorship

What is Sponsorship?

Sponsorship is defined by the Chamber of Commerce as any commercial agreement by which a sponsor, for the mutual benefit of the sponsor and sponsored party contractually provides financing or other support in order to establish an association between the sponsor's image, brands or products and sponsoring property in return for rights to promote this association and/or image for the grant of certain agreed direct or indirect benefits. 

The aim of Sportsmatch is to bring commercial sponsorship in to sport. However, as many charities/charitable trusts and private individuals obtain their income from commercial activity those are also acceptable forms of sponsorship. Priority is given to applications seeking to match new sponsorship from the commercial sector.

Sportsmatch can match no more than five eligible sponsors, each of which must contribute a minimum of £1,000.

Your sponsorship should be confirmed prior to submitting an application. Evidence of the sponsorship is a project specific document that must be submitted to support this application. The sponsor's declaration form should be completed by each of your sponsors, unless you can provide a copy of a formal agreement that has already been signed by the two parties.

You can have already received the money from your sponsor at the time of submitting your application. However, you should not spend any of your sponsor’s money on the project until you have received a funding decision from us.

In-kind funding

Sponsorship in-kind relates to situations where the sponsor provides equipment or items to the organisation, instead of investing cash. Sportsmatch may be able to match the value of these items provided it equates to no more than 50% of the total eligible sponsorship (e.g. a £100k project with £50k being requested from Sport England, at least £25k of the remaining funding would need to be cash sponsorship). In-kind funding can include sporting equipment and other non-personal items directly related to sporting activities (including kit which remains in the organising body's possession).

The items being matched in-kind must be capable of being given a monetary value which can be verified and must be at cost price to the sponsor. It will be necessary to show that the goods will contribute to increasing participation in sport and be directly linked to your project activity. Sportsmatch will not match personal time, advertising space or publicity costs.

Sponsors ineligible for match funding

We cannot match sponsorship from:

• a statutory body, for example a local authority or further education college, or an organisation that receives more than 25% of their funds from government sources, as this would be public funds matching other public funds.
• Grants from the Landfill Communities Fund, gift aid and contributions derived from an agreement or undertaking made under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
• An organisation whose primary purpose is the promotion or sale of alcohol or tobacco where project beneficiaries are under 18 and/or the project involves motor sports.
• An organisation whose business may harm the reputation of Sport England.
• An organisation that derives its funds from the delivery of sporting activities, a national governing body, charity or professional sporting body that is investing in its own sport e.g. a leisure centre who provide opportunities for badminton sponsoring a badminton club. Investment in other sports will be considered on a case by case basis.
• An organisation without a base in the UK.
• Professional or trade associations.
• Charities that do not have a provision in their constitution to give grants.

For additional sponsorship information please download our Sportsmatch Sponsorship Guidance document.