Deadline: 31-Jul-20
Sport England is seeking proposals for Community Emergency Fund with an aim to help community sport and physical activity organisations who are experiencing short term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.
Fund aims to deliver immediate funding to those most in need. It’s specifically targeted at organisations, including those not currently supported by them, who have a role in supporting the nation to be active but who are experiencing short term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the ongoing crisis.
The types of organisations eligible include local sports clubs forced to close at short notice but who are facing ongoing costs around maintenance and utility bills, and voluntary and community sector organisations who deliver or enable sport and physical activity.
Funding Information
Awards will be between £300 and £10,000. In exceptional circumstances they will consider awards of more than £10,000.
Sport England will Fund
The fund has been developed to help community sport and physical activity organisations meet their obligations, in particular fixed costs, which are no longer supported with revenue as a result of coronavirus. This might cover expenditure on:
- Rent
- Utility costs
- Insurances
- Facility or equipment hire
- Core staffing costs (including casual workers) that cannot be met elsewhere by other government funds
Some examples of the sort of things the fund can help with are:
- Support a boxing club to pay for their utility bills and other costs for their facility when no activity is taking place
- Support a local league who have paid for equipment to run a competition which is now cancelled and therefore will not receive the money they had expected to cover the cost of that equipment.
This fund is designed to help grassroots sport and physical activity providers. This means they are not able to help the following organisations with this fund.
- Local authorities, including town and parish councils
- Schools, colleges and universities
- Commercial sport and physical activity providers, e.g. private gyms
- Leisure operators
- Individuals who are either employed or self-employed within the sport and physical activity sector.
Any organisation or individuals who can access support through the government’s financial packages should do so in the first instance. They will review the availability of these packages on an ongoing basis.
Eligibility Criteria
Any organisation delivering community sport and physical activity can apply to the fund if it’s experiencing short term financial hardship or the ceasing of operations due to the impact of coronavirus. They will be prioritising organisations that work with under-represented groups – see the fund criteria for more information.
The organisations that can apply include:
- Local sports clubs
- Voluntary and community sector organisations that deliver or enable sport and/or physical activity, including organisations that are not solely or primarily sports organisations and have an important role to play in keeping people active, that may need support for other parts of their organisation to remain open
- Small charitable trusts that do not qualify for financial help elsewhere
- Regional or county level organisations or leagues that have already paid out funds for activities that are now cancelled and are not able to claim funds from elsewhere.
For more information, visit https://www.sportengland.org/how-we-can-help/our-funds/community-emergency-fund