Funding 4 Sport – Developing a Sports Funding Strategy

Applying for sports funding can easily become a never-ending process of filling in forms and developing proposals. By developing a sports funding strategy it will help your organisation or club to prioritise your funding work and make best use of your time by planning ahead and targeting particular funders.

A sports funding strategy will help your organisation or club identify and schedule your funding opportunities so that you can avoid either ad-hoc or last minute rushed applications.

What is the point of a Funding Strategy?

To bring in more money from existing funders and other sources of income
To identify new funders and new sources of income
To secure continued funding for your existing work as well as bringing in funds for new projects and developments
To increase the security of your organisation or club by attracting funding from a number of sources – increasing and developing your funding mix
To make best use of your limited resources

Funding is not an isolated activity

A funding strategy does not work on its own. It should be part of your overall plan that shows where your organisation or club is heading. The funding strategy is the engine to make this development happen and should incorporate other income into your organisation or club e.g. club fees, fundraising and sponsorship.

Each area of your work will need to be budgeted for and therefore you will need to identify funders or sources for each aspect. New developments in your work may open up new funding opportunities.

After you’ve worked out the costs of what you want funding for, you will need to ensure Full Cost Recovery is adhered to make sure you have included all the running costs, marketing, administration, hire of premises etc.

You will need to build into your plan enough time to develop good relationships and contacts with existing funders and other sources of income, and ensure that you continue to contribute to your on-going work.

Funding options

As part of your funding priorities you will need to create a good mix of funding sources. These will include:

Central government and local authority funding streams
Charitable trusts and foundations
European funding
Lottery funds
The corporate sector
Events
Fundraising
Sponsorship
Club Fees

It is important options include how you generate income yourselves within your organisation or club by our own efforts as funders like to see this but also funding alone will not cover everything you wish to achieve. It will also avoid you becoming too dependent on one or two specific income areas and provide you with security in case one of or more of them is no longer able to fund you.

The next step of you sports Funding Strategy is to look at particular direct sources of funding and pull together a list of all the relevant funding options that you are aware of and evaluate each in terms of the following:

What is the purpose of the grant (does it fund sport)?
Have they funded you in the past?
Do you have a contact within the funding organisation?
What is their maximum (and minimum) level of grant or award?
How complicated is the application process?
What is their success rate for applications? What percentage of applications submitted are successful?
Do they fund similar work in your area (demographically)?
Are you high on their priority list of fundable organisations?

The above exercise will help you arrive at a priority list of funders to approach or sources to work on.

Action Plan

When you know which sources of income you will consider you then need to put this into an action plan that makes clear the following:

Which funder(s) or source(s) of funding are you going to tackle
What project/item are you requesting support towards e.g. a ‘shopping list’ approach
What do you need to do,
How many days the work will take
Who will be doing it
Your targets for each source of funding

Monitoring

To make the strategy work effectively you will need review it regularly, for example it might be that new funds will be launched which the strategy may need to include. It will also enable us to understand why certain sources were unsuccessful and analyse our funding targets to see whether they are realistic.

Over the next couple of weeks Funding 4 Sport will be adding a Sports Funding Strategy section to the website so please look out for this.

Funding Streams

Lord Taverners Funding for Non-turf cricket pitches

Lord’s Taverners have opened their 2013 scheme for the installation of non-turf cricket pitches, practice ends and nets. Clubs applying must have an established junior section, and be able to contribute at least 50% of funding to the project. Awards do not normally exceed the following levels:

Non-turf match pitch – £3,000
Non-turf practice – £2,000
Outdoor nets – £1,000

To find out more click here; www.lordstaverners.org/charity/support-and-funding/youth-cricket.htm

Welsh Rugby Union Recruitment Funding Grant

Rugby clubs in Wales have until 28 February to submit an application for a Welsh Rugby Union Recruitment Funding Grant.

The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has made a total of £200,000 of funding available to rugby clubs in Wales for recruitment initiatives for the 2012-13 season.

To view click here; http://www.wru.co.uk/eng/development/club/funding.php

Funding News

Government scraps plans to merge UK Sport and Sport England funding following success at London Olympics

The Government has scrapped plans to merge the funding quangos UK Sport and Sport England, it was confirmed today.

New chairs for both bodies are to be appointed, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has announced, and the organisations are expected to share offices from next year.
It is a change to the merger policy announced by the Government in 2010 but which has been called into question, especially following the success of the British team at the London 2012 Olympics.

To find out more click here; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9821609/Government-scraps-plans-to-merge-UK-Sport-and-Sport-England-funding-following-success-at-London-Olympics.html

New Funding Tool for Charities

The Charity Commission has launched a new tool to help charities find umbrella and infrastructure groups offering bespoke advice and support.

As part of its wider partnership programme, the Charity Commission for England and Wales has developed its website to allow charities to access information about the support provided by over 40 umbrella and infrastructure bodies.

To find out more click; http://www.fundingcentral.org.uk/newsview.aspx?WCU=DSCODE=OTSLIVE,NEWSITEMID=248-N45700#.UPm5ox1WySo

Sport England backs women’s sport with £1.7m Investment

Sport England has revealed how a £1.7 million two-year investment into the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) will help get more women involved in sport. The charity has been commissioned to help sports’ bodies to attract more women and teenage girls to participate regularly in sport.

To find out more click here; http://www.funding4sport.co.uk/2013/01/22/sport-england-backs-womens-sport-with-1-7m-investment/

Sport England boosts funding to help more young people enjoy sport in a safe environment

Sport England has shown its commitment to putting children’s welfare at the heart of sport by increasing its investment in the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU).

It will provide £1 million to the CPSU over the next two years, alongside the funding awarded to 46 different sports to help more people take part.

To find to more click here; http://www.sportengland.org/about_us/our_news/safeguarding.aspx

Asset transfer guide for football clubs (and others)

Locality have worked with the Football Association to produce a guide on asset transfer. This is where clubs and leagues looking at taking on facilities such as playing fields from statutory bodies. As money gets tighter, this could well be something that happens a lot, as Councils seek to find ways of reducing their liabilities.

While designed with football in mind, the process would be similar for any sport, so could be of interest to any sports club using local authority playing fields or facilities.

To view the click here: locality.org.uk/resources/fa-guide-asset-transfers/

This article was taken from South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau - http://syfab.org.uk/fundingnews/

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Funding 4 Sport has launched its new facebook page were you can pick up the latest news from ‘Funding 4 Sport.’ We would love you to visit our page and ‘share’ it with others or ‘like’ us, however more importantly we would like to use this page to promote anything you are doing liked to sports funding, whether that’s; running a funding workshop or attending one, offering funding or applying for it, have a success story to tell or wanting to share some funding news, we’d love to hear from you, and if you let us know and send us the information we will post this on our facebook page for everyone to see.If you have information to send us please do so at info@funding4sport.co.uk and if you just want to visit our facebook page please do so at; http://www.facebook.com/Funding4Sport

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