Small grants, big impact

Sport England today revealed that more than 2,500 local sports projects have benefited from its Small Grants fund to get more people playing sport since April 2010.

A basketball club in Nottingham and a cycling club in Manchester were among the 57 bidders to learn this week that they’ll receive National Lottery money to improve the sport on offer in their community. The success rate for Small Grants applicants this year is higher than ever at 74 per cent.

Small Grants provide up to £10,000 of Lottery funding to local sport groups that want to get more people involved in sport. Southwark Navigators Club received £2,600 to buy an orienteering timing kit that has helped the club introduce more people to the sport.

Club organiser Linda Cairns explains the difference the investment has made: “The kit that the grant paid for has been used by thousands of people of all ages. Once we had got the kit we started taking it into schools and running sessions at the weekend for people to try orienteering for the first time and it’s proved really popular. We had 90 people at one session.”

In total £17.94 million has been awarded to 2,524 projects through Small Grants over the past two-and-a-half years. This is in addition to the 410 projects to receive money from our Sportsmatch programme over that period and the 921 clubs and facilities that have already benefitted from our Places People Play Olympic and Paralympic Legacy programme.

“While our larger investments tend to grab the headlines, we’re proud that most projects we fund are the small, local clubs that are the heartbeat of community sport in England,” said Sport England Chair, Richard Lewis.

“There is several million pounds of lottery money still to invest through Small Grants this year, so we really want to hear from organisations that need support to open up more sporting opportunities for their community.”

Find out more about Sport England funding.