If your project is for people living in the North East of England, our regional office in Durham will assess your request for funds.

The North East Regional Plan for Sport sets out what we need to do to increase the number of people taking part in sport and physical activity in our region. The current participation rate is 28%, we are committed to increasing this to 50% by 2020. This means we need to get 34,602 new people active every year - the equivalent of 665 new people every week.

Sport England has set a further ambition for the North East to have 94,949 adults participating more in sport and active recreation by 2012. This equates to 15,825 adults starting to participate, or increasing their participation, each year from 2007 to 2012.

If you are thinking of requesting funding from the Sport England Community Investment Fund for your project, you should know that the North East Regional Sports Board will look for projects that both drive up participation and widen access in the region.

Before continuing with your request, please make yourself familiar with the North East’s priorities for funding.

Regional headlines
The level of funding available has reduced significantly. There is approximately £15 million allocated to the whole region for the period up to March 2009. This will be used to support organisations with capital and revenueprojects, or a combination of both, that contribute to regional priorities and to Sport England's objectives will be supported.

We will consider funding up to 33% of the total cost of successful applications – although this can be increased in exceptional circumstances. So for every £1 of Sport England funding you receive you will be required to generate £2 of partnership funding or funding in kind and to explain how you will do this.

The minimum award amount available is £5,000

Large grants for individual projects are extremely unlikely to be supported. We know that your funding needs will vary, but do bear in mind the amount of money we have available.

Projects that make the greatest contribution to the North East of England Regional Plan for Sport and Physical Activity are the most likely to be supported. When we evaluate your request, the more priorities it meets, the greater its chance of obtaining an award. You can download full copies of the plan here:

north_east_plan

To request a hard copy please call: 08458 508 508

We also believe that the strongest projects and those wit the best chance of success have consulted and worked with others.Therefore, you should involve County Sports Partnerships, National Governing Bodies and Local Authorities from the outset to ensure everyone's investment works better.

Timing of Applications
You can make initial enquiries about funding at any time and we will endeavour to make an early decision about whether your project is likely to be funded.

Criteria
In the North East, priority for funding will be given to projects that:

• Increase participation for priority groups (those on a low income, those with a long term limiting illness, girls and women and black and minority ethnic groups)

• Make the greatest contribution towards regional priority policies (in particular coaching, volunteering, workforce development, multi sport environments, active workplaces, delivery of sport governing body plans in the region)
• Demonstrate how they will significantly increase levels of participation, based on how many take part at the moment

• Are from areas of social deprivation – in our region deemed to be those in the worst 10% wards nationally
• Are part of a co-ordinated joined up approach at a local level to the provision linking a range of partners such as sport, education, health, the workplace and the community and developing real partnerships between these sectors
• Develop more than one sport or activity
• Focus on making better use of existing assets rather than creating new capital assets
• Can show how it will continue after the end of the three-year revenue-funding period

We recommend that you consider the extent to which your project will help achieve our regional policy priorities before applying – bearing in mind our priority is increasing participation amongst those people who do not currently take part in sport or physical activity.  

Next steps

Once you are ready to proceed, the first step is to find out whether your project meets our basic eligibility criteria. You can use our online enquiry form to do this.  There is a great deal of information available as part of the application process and you are advised to consider this in detail before submitting your application.

For a full explanation about how to obtain Sport England funding please refer to the

For a full explanation about how to obtain Sport England funding please refer to the Three Steps to Funding leaflet  (18KB) PDF

Load enquiry form

We have prepared a number of guidance notes and templates to help you develop your project idea.

Go to guidance notes and templates index