Each year we invest more than £250 million of National Lottery and public money to help people play sport and take part in physical activity.
We know that applying to one of our funds for the first time can seem a little daunting, but here we’ll guide you to the appropriate fund and explain exactly what you need to do.
We’ve always tried to address inequalities through our funding and particularly encourage applications for projects that support people who have poorer health outcomes and lower activity levels.
Coronavirus (Covid-19) has had an impact on everyone but our insight is showing it’s more significant in some communities/groups and the rate of recovery back to pre-pandemic levels is slower for some people.
To help support those most severely effected by the ongoing pandemic, we have a £21.5m Return to Play Fund.
When it first opened last year there were three options to this fund – Small Grants and the Community Asset Fund, which had been adapted from pre-coronavirus funds, and Active Together crowdfunding – which had been extended.
All three focused on a safe return to play and narrowing the inequalities gap in sport and physical activity.
The Community Asset Fund has now been paused to new applications, but the remaining two options continue to offer help and support.
We've also launched our Places and Spaces Fund that's part of our Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games package to help community sport and physical activity groups improve places and spaces in the West Midlands.
This fund makes awards, using National Lottery and government funding, of between £300 and £10,000, from a total pot of £15m, to help clubs and organisations providing sport and physical activity, respond to the immediate challenges of returning to play in a coronavirus-safe way, as well as providing new activities to get people active again as restrictions are lifted.
To assist eligible projects in the most deprived communities, we’ll also contribute up to £1,000 towards existing running costs of organisations.
This fund will close on 23 December 2021.
Active Together is a crowdfunding initiative that can match fund, up to £10,000, successful Crowdfunder campaigns from a total pot of £7.5m.
With expert advice and guidance to support you, this will help local clubs and organisations to run their own crowdfunding campaigns, fundraising for things such as a loss of income due to the crisis, or any other Covid-19 related needs.
A £3.5 million pot with up to £10,000 available in match funding for Crowdfunder projects, as part of a Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games package to help community sport and physical activity groups improve places and spaces in the West Midlands.
The Together Fund is another £20m fund that follows the Tackling Inequalities Fund, which helped reduce the negative impact of coronavirus and the widening of the inequalities in sport and physical activity.
We’re continuing to work with Active Partnerships and selected national partners to connect funding to local community organisations, who are best placed to support our priority audiences through their extensive reach and networks.
Our Strategic Facilities Fund is designed to support the sector to invest strategically so it delivers the outcomes essential to local communities.
This programme is not open via an application process. We work with local authorities and our expert partners to ensure the right major capital projects are in the right places to support our strategic outcomes.
If you could do with a little help but none of our other open funds seem applicable, then you can always just tell us your great idea.
Forget about the application process for now, simply tell us your idea - including ones to help the sport and physical activity sector through the coronavirus crisis - and we'll let you know if it's something we can help you with.
Even if we can't fund you there are other ways we can help, so let's start talking.
There are a number of other sources of funding that organisations can apply to and should consider in addition to the programmes we have available.
Find out more about the traditional sources of funding and social sector opportunities out there.
This fund made awards of between £10,001 and £50,000 from a pot of £5m to help local sports clubs and organisations adapt important places and spaces to help their local community return to play safely.
This could have included contributing to covering the costs incurred by converting existing space to meet social distancing guidelines during activity, or improving a facility’s ventilation.
Please note, this fund is now closed to new applications.
We evaluate our investment programmes to gather learning that improves outcomes for existing and future projects. Evaluation reports show and explain impact and return on investment, increase our insight and support advocacy for further sport investment.
We've designed an Evaluation Framework to help our colleagues and partners to evaluate funding streams and projects effectively, and to get maximum value from measurement and evaluation.
If you've been awarded a revenue grant you'll need to claim your funding and reconcile your expenditure.
