WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A GRANT

Clubs in England are spoilt for choice when it comes to grant funding - especially where sport is concerned. MATTHEW MOGGRIDGE examines what’s available

If you’re looking for money you don’t have to pay back, it’s definitely worth checking out where you stand on grant funding - particularly if your plans are in any way sport-related.

SPORTSMATCH FUNDING
Sport England’s Sportsmatch funding scheme is exchequer-funded and awards around £3 million each year.

Clubs need to find funding from a sponsor and then apply to Sport England to match that funding. Proof of the sponsor’s funding will be needed.

The City of Cambridge Rowing Club recently applied for Sportsmatch funding to enable veteran rowers to remain in competition and maintain competitiveness.

It found a sponsor who was willing to part with £10,000 to buy new equipment for the purpose so all that remained was to approach Sport England to match that figure and double the amount of money available to purchase the required equipment, in this case two new boats (a Coxed Four and one Coxless Pair).
According to club secretary James Curran, getting the money was difficult as it involved a lot of paperwork, but it was well worth it in the end.
The club has being growing fast and attracting plenty of 20 to 30 year-old members, but was having difficulty retaining older members and keeping them active. Older members get priority usage of the new boats.
Rowing is an expensive sport that cannot be funded through membership alone, says Curran. He strongly recommends the Sportsmatch scheme to any club looking for funding.

CASH4CLUBS
Cash4Clubs offers clubs a chance to apply for grants to improve facilities, purchase new equipment, gain coaching qualifications, and invest in the sustainability of their club.
Since 2008 over £100,000 has been given out in grants to community sports clubs across the UK.
Cash4Clubs is funded by Betfair and supported by SportsAid. The two organisations have worked in partnership for a number of years and understand the importance of community sport in promoting an active lifestyle and stimulating local pride.
“The development of grass roots sport through community clubs is essential to help increase participation and bring on new talent in sport. As a former member of Leeds Swimming Club, I know how important the provision of good facilities is,” says James Hickman. The five times World Swimming Champion is now a SportsAid Ambassador.
Hitchin Rugby Club, for example, is a family orientated club, with teams for all ages and low family subscription costs. A coach development programme supports both their players’ game and keeps ex-players involved.
Their role in the community’s grassroots sport development secured them a £1,000 sports grant, which will help the Youth Development Officer encourage more children to take up the sport.
Cambourne Cricket Club has also received Cash4Clubs funding. Formed in 2008, it has already achieved ClubMark status and built links with local schools and youth clubs as well as a formal Club/School partnership with Comberton Village College.
The club’s plans to continue improving facilities hit a blip though, thanks to the economic downturn. As funding from local companies became harder to come by, funding from Cash4Clubs meant the club could buy a net and offer good training facilities, helping to stimulate the further growth of the club.
Applying for a Cash4Clubs grant is easy. Go to the website and fill out an application form. Any sports club can apply as long as they are registered with their sport’s National Governing Body or Local Authority.
There are grants of £250, £500 or £1,000 and they are awarded on a discretionary basis.
• For further details, log on to www.cash-4-clubs.com

England & Wales Cricket Board
The England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) offers a range of what it calls ‘funding streams’ and has a team of people working regionally to help clubs looking for grants or interest-free loans.
Interest-free loans are available only to ECB affiliated cricket clubs and run to a limit of £50,000. The repayment period is up to five years and clubs with as little as 25 per cent partnership funding can apply - applicants can apply for a loan of up to 75 per cent of the total cost of the project. The repayments are made quarterly throughout the term of the loan and clubs are only eligible if they have a junior section.
Clubs interested in an interest-free loan, should write to the ECB explaining their project and outline their current status regarding junior development.
Also available from the ECB is a small grant scheme, which is open to all eligible cricket clubs and organisations and is designed to ‘make small, incremental changes to improve the quality and sustainability of the provision of cricket by making purchases that directly impact on the playing of the game of cricket and/or by reducing the operating costs of cricket clubs.’
The first step, however, is to visit the ECB’s website (www.ecb.co.uk).

The English Golf Union and the English Women’s Golf Association.
The English Golf Union (EGU) and the English Women’s Golf Association (EWGA) are part-funded by Sport England.
Golf development manager Richard Flint has a team of seven regional development officers and works with 35 county development officers whose role it is to support golf at county level and work closely with golf clubs and other golfing bodies under the umbrella group of England Golf.
According to Flint, golf clubs can apply for revenue grants for coaching and this embraces coaching new players, beginners or people of all ages. And while juniors have long been a focus of activity - the players of the future - there is now an increased drive to bring more adults into the game.
Where coaching grants are concerned, preference is currently being given to Golfmark accredited clubs as they have a proven focus upon four key areas: child protection, environment, coaching and playing. Of the EGU’s 1,900 affiliated golf clubs, 450 are Golfmark-accredited and a further 600 are working towards accreditation, says Flint.
The coaching grant is small (generally £500 per financial year) but many clubs put their own money into coaching unless they are very small and struggling financially. Lots of clubs are pro-active and offer coaching sessions themselves, he points out, adding: “We’re trying to be equal to all affiliated clubs that are Golfmark accredited. If you fit the bill, you can apply for the grant.”
Crown Golf, winner of Club Mirror’s Group of the Year 2010, is just one success story. The group owns 29 golf clubs, 15 of which are match-funding a £600 grant per club received from EGU and EWGA.
The combined sum of £18,000 translates to 360 free places on the company’s Discover Golf programme, which aims to incentivise non-golfers of all ages to take up the sport. A month of free coaching at any of the 15 teaching facilities is now being offered on a first-come first-served basis.
“Crown Golf came to us and said it wanted to do something different and significant with the money we give them each year for having attained GolfMark status. We applaud the initiative and look forward to seeing more new people playing golf in more places in 2011,” says Flint. Rob Spurrier, group academy manager at Crown Golf, is equally pleased.
“We are delighted that, with the help of the EGU and EWGA, we are able to help more people try out golf,” he says. “We have a ground-breaking coaching programme, tailored to each individual’s needs, and we hope to be able to facilitate a significantly higher number of people taking up golf, and continuing to play, over the coming months and years.”
Grant funding in capital projects is not on the agenda at present, advises Flint, but might re-surface in the future. The EGU funds county golf partnerships and has been supporting participation since 2005. Some £3.5 million is available until 2013 and will be used to deliver grassroots projects at county level.
Earlier this month, clubs in the South West were getting behind South West Golf Week where clubs offer a variety of taster sessions and events.
“The other thing to put into context is the resources and support we give the golf clubs in terms of face-to-face contact. We can offer advice to clubs on child protection and accessing external funds,” says Flint, adding that Golfmark-accredited clubs are better placed to access Local Authority funds. It is the county officers’ remit to help them apply for external funding, he adds.
There are approximately 2,500 to 3,000 golf clubs in the UK of which 1,900 are EGU/EWGA affiliated. There are also 250 standalone driving ranges.
“Driving ranges are often people’s first experience of the game,” he says, explaining how the EGU is offering similar grants to driving ranges. The plan is to tailor the existing Golfmark accreditation scheme to driving ranges - it’s called Rangemark.
Flint advises golf clubs to visit the Golfmark website for details of how to become accredited (www.golfmark.org) or visit the English Golf Union or English Women’s Golf Association websites.

The Football Foundation
Football-specific grant funding can be obtained from the Football Foundation and once again, any club wanting funding on a small or large scale should visit the Football Foundation’s website (www.footballfoundation.org.uk). At one end, says the FF’s Rory Carroll, there’s funding for things like a small boiler, but at the other end, there are sixfigure sums for help towards a new clubhouse.
The Football Foundation invests £36 million per annum into various projects and is the UK’s largest sports charity. Funded by the Premier League, the FA and the Government, the Foundation allots £30 million to local projects with the remaining £6 million going towards safer stadia for football fans through the Football Stadia Improvement Fund (FSIF).
Since its launch in 2000, the Football Foundation has secured over £539 million in additional inward investment and has delivered a £5 return on every £1 invested by each funding partner. Over 1,500 facility projects have been funded over the past decade and over 300,000 children have received new football strips.
There are some impressive participation figures too. Football Foundation-funded facilities have witnessed a 20.8 per cent increase in football participation and a 13.6 increase across all sports. And while there has been a 23.9 per cent increase in adult participation in football and 26.2 per cent more coaches being trained, the big figure is reserved for the voluntary sector with a staggering 180.3 per cent increase in the number of volunteers involved in the game at Foundation-funded facilities.

National Lottery and Big Lottery funding.
National Lottery funding knows no boundaries and is available throughout the UK (www.lotteryfunding.org.uk). It invites any applicant to fill in a form on-line or talk to an adviser (0845 275 000) about grant funding and will then pass on their request to one of a number of ‘lottery providers,’ which includes organisations like Sport England, Sport Scotland and Sport Northern Ireland, among others. The Big Lottery Fund is a ‘lottery provider’ and offers the Awards for All scheme, which makes available funds ranging from £300 to £10,000. Out of all Big Lottery Fund schemes, Awards for All is likely to appeal most to clubs. According to a spokesman, The Big Lottery Fund is the biggest of ‘good cause’ distributors in the UK.
Until April 1, 2009, all lottery fund distributors offered Awards for All. Since that date, the Awards for All programme has been run solely by the Big Lottery Fund in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Other agencies, like the UK’s three Sports Councils (Sport England, Sport Scotland and Sport Northern Ireland) have their own small grants schemes.
Club applying to The Big Lottery Fund must demonstrate that the scheme will benefit the local community - not just the club. While new football kits would not be acceptable, for example, a new clubhouse, used by club members and the wider local community, could be.
Visit www.awardsforall.org.uk for more details, or download an application form at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk.
You can also call the advice line (0845 4 10 20 30) or email general.enquiries@biglotteryfund.org.uk.

The Rugby Football Foundation
If you’re an English rugby club, the Rugby Football Foundation (RFF) is where you will details of grant funding and a loan scheme.
The RFF offers clubs at level 5 or below grants of between £1,500 and £5,000 on a matched 50:50 basis for capital works projects ‘that support the retention and recruitment of community rugby players’.
Applications for grants are considered on a rolling basis throughout the year and a decision made on whether funding is available within an eight-week period.
Also available from the RFF is an interest free loan scheme of up to £100,000 for capital works to clubs at level 4 and below. There is a two-stage application process and three award cycles.
Full details of the grant and loan schemes are available on the RFF website (www.rfu.com/rff/).

The Rugby Football Union
Where community rugby club funding is concerned, The Rugby Football Union (RFU) says that funding falls into two categories: revenue support and capital support. The former covers people and programme and the latter facilities and equipment.
The RFU advises rugby clubs to check out funding agencies at both a local and national level and offers plenty of information on its website (www.rfu.com).
In the past 12 months, the RFU’s Community Club Development Programme has awarded £6 million to 125 different projects, one of which was Barnsley Rugby Club’s new state-of-the-art floodlit training pitch, which was officially opened last summer.
The Community Club Development Programme is a collaboration between Sport England and the RFU. The project cost £250,000 and embraces a 60m x 40m artificial pitch and floodlights plus rebound boards for five-aside football and maintenance equipment.

Sport England
If you’re after funding for anything sport-related, it is well worth checking out Sport England’s website (www.sportengland.org).
Sport England runs a small grants programme (established in 2009), which ranges from £300 to £10,000. It invests around £7 million annually via small grants and is targeting clubs that don’t want to do anything too complicated. Getting a small grant is simple: you apply online and if you qualify, the money will be yours within eight weeks.
The key with Sport England’s small grants is that every project must have a direct impact on participation. “That’s the fundamental point of this,” a Sport England spokesman told Club Mirror.
He advises clubs seeking a small grant to view all the qualifying criteria on-line. One key point is that the sport for which a grant is being applied for must be a recognised one - there’s no point expecting grant funding for aboriginal archery because you won’t get it.
Larger grants are available through Sport England’s Sportsmatch programme, as already mentioned above (basically if you find a sponsor, Sport England will match that sponsor’s investment in your club), Last November, Sport England announced its Open Programmes, which are linked to its Places People Play initiative. There are three rounds of £10 million all of which fall under the brand name of Iconic. Round one is already active, round two goes live in the autumn and the final round will be in autumn 2012. These grants are aimed at multi-sport developments and are best described as ‘sector leading, innovative projects that show long-term financial viability’.
Later this year, Sport England will launch its Inspired Facilities programme. Like the current Iconic programme, this is also part of the Places People Play initiative and is another of Sport England’s open programmes.
Through Inspired Facilities, Sport England has £50 million to invest in what it calls ‘smaller projects’ of around £100,000 in value. Sport England is developing a catalogue of standard facility improvements and will ‘pre-procure’ a list of products for a variety of common sports club modernisations. For example, clubs that wish to provide their members and local community with an artificial playing surface, will be offered a specific product should they approach Sport England for an Inspired Facilities grant.
Sport England’s spokesman told Club Mirror that preprocurement makes life easier for the clubs by eliminating the tender process that they would normally have to go through having received grant funding. Grants of between £20,000 and £150,000 are available.
“This means more work on our part, but it reduces the amount of things the applicant needs to do. We’ve talked to the sector and found out what they want and this will reduce the turnaround on a capital investment,” says a spokesman. Launching next month, Protecting Playing Fields is another National Lottery-funded Sport England initiative and involves £10 million of grant funding distributed through five £2 million rounds during 2014 and 2015.
“We already have a statutory role in protecting playing fields and this new initiative is all about investing in them and protecting them,” says the spokesman.
From a timelines perspective, clubs can apply now for small grants and Sportsmatch, which are both rolling programmes. The Iconic round of the Places People Play initiative is open now too.
According to Sport England, 60 per cent of applicants for Sport England’s small grants were successful during the period 2010 to 2011. For Sportsmatch during the same time frame it was 41 per cent.